Risk of Maccabi Tel Aviv facing antisemitic attacks not ‘predominant’ reason for match ban, police tell MPs – UK politics live

4.58pm GMT
Home Office to review how police forces assess whether fans should be banned from football matches, minister tells MPs

Sarah Jones, the policing minister, has told MPs that the Home Office has ordered a review into the way the police assess whether or not there is case for banning fans ahead of a football match. It will be carried out by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services.
She was speaking in the Commons in response to an urgent question about the decision to ban Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from a Europa League match. (See 2.24pm.)
Jones said the review would consider whether police advice on these decisions takes into account all relevant factors, including the impact on wider community relations.
Nick Timothy, the Conservative MP who tabled the UQ, said the ban on Maccabi fans was a “disgrace”, and the justification given by the West Midlands police for it was based on a “fiction”. He cited the report by Gabriel Pogrund in yesterday’s Sunday Times as evidence for this. He urged the government to publish all intelligence relating to the decision.
In response, Jones said there were wider lessons to be learned from this case. That is why the home secretary has called for a review, she said. The review will report next year, she said.
Referring to the Sunday Times report, she said she had written to West Midlands police asking for clarification as to what happened. And she said the Commons home affairs committee is investigating this too.

4.40pm GMT
IFS director Helen Miller says freezing tax thresholds would be breach of Labour's manifesto

Some 47% of people think freezing income tax thresholds would be a breach of the Labour manifesto, More in Common polling suggests. (See 4.31pm.)
They include Helen Miller, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies thinktank. Asked if freezing thresholds would amount to a tax rise, she told Radio 4’s the Westminster Hour last night:

Absolutely yes. And I mean it’s also – fun fact for you – assuming that it’s done the same way that it’s been done so far, it will also be a freeze in national insurance thresholds, it will therefore also be an increase in national insurance, and if so in my mind it would also break the letter of the manifesto, which said no increase in national insurance.
It might not be as salient as a rate rise, but the chancellor would raise something in the order of £8bn to £9bn through freezing thresholds. That’s very obviously an increase in tax on people who are working.

4.31pm GMT
Around two thirds of Britons think Sunak or Hunt would be better chancellor than Reeves, poll suggests

More in Common has released some new polling today on attitudes to the budget. None of the findings are very encouraging for Labour. Here are five of the more interesting findings.
1) Only people earning about £100,000 a year or more are optimistic about the budget, the poll suggests.
2) Around two thirds of Britons think Rishi Sunak or Jeremy Hunt would do a better job as chancellor than Rachel Reeves, the poll suggests. Even among Labour voters, 40% of them say Hunt would be better.
3) Britons says breaking the manifesto tax pledge would be worse than Partygate, the poll suggests.
4) Almost half of Britons would see freezing income tax thresholds (something Reeves seems almost certain to do) as a breach of the Labour manifesto, the poll suggests.
5) Britons favour spending cuts over higher taxes for working people by a margin of two to one, the poll suggests.

4.04pm GMT
Former MI6 counter-terrorism chief suggests law shouldn't treat holding Palestine Action placards as terrorism

Haroon Siddique is the Guardian’s legal affairs correspondent.
A former security services chief has said it is wrong that people have been branded terrorists for allegedly holding up signs supporting Palestine Action.
More than 2,000 people have been arrested on suspicion of showing support for Palestine Action since the ban on the direct action group under the Terrorist Act took effect on 5 July, placing it alongside the likes of Islamic State and Boko Haram.
Most are accused of holding signs saying: “I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action.”
Speaking ahead of the legal challenge to proscription of Palestine Action, which is due to begin on Wednesday, the former global counter-terrorism director of MI6, Richard Barrett, said:

What those people were doing holding up placards could not be considered a threat to national security, in my view, and therefore there shouldn’t have been a legal framework which allowed those terrorist charges to be brought against them.
I think those protesters just calmly holding placards were also demonstrating that they had lost trust in the system of government and the processes in which the government might declare a group [to be] terrorist and proscribe it.
If the law is not working, one should look quite carefully at why it’s not working and this law is not being respected, then one should look quite carefully at the whole process involved. On the face of it, the police were doing their duty [by arresting them] but I can’t think many police would have thought that’s the best use of their time.

The judicial review of the decision to ban Palestine Action was supposed to start tomorrow but has been postponed by a day due to one of the lawyers being ill.
Barrett is part of an independent counter-terrorism commission set up by the Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law, which published its report earlier this month.
The Home Office has consistently responded to criticism of the ban by saying that supporting Palestine is not the same as supporting a proscribed terrorist organisation.

3.51pm GMT
Starmer 'significantly increased' risks associated with Maccabi fan ban by implying link to antisemitism, Labour PCC says

Keir Starmer “significantly increased” the risks associated with the Maccabi Tel Aviv Europa League match at Aston Villa when he denounced the ban on its fans, the West Midlands police and crime commissioner (PCC) has said.
Simon Foster, who is a Labour PCC, criticised the PM in a letter to the Commons home affairs committee today, published alongside a letter from the West Midlands police (WMP). (See 2.24pm.)
Foster and WMP were both replying to questions submitted by the committee. But, in his reply, Foster suggests, “respectfully”, that the committee should also be asking questions of other people, including Starmer.
Foster says:

It is undeniable that the prime minister’s intervention significantly increased the risks associated with the fixture, by not only criticising the decision, but also confusing who actually made the decision – it was not the police – and implying, that the decision was related to, or even motivated by, antisemitism.
The committee might usefully inquire of the prime minister as to the process via which he acquainted himself with the facts and the evidence, before he concluded the decision was wrong and then decided to make such an intervention and in particular, what advice he received before doing so and what led him to use the form of words he did.

Foster also said that, when Starmer posted a tweet saying that banning Maccabi fans was wrong because it suggested that antisemitism was being tolerated, he implied that the government was not aware that WMP was likely to recommend a ban. But the Home Office had been told about that the previous week, Foster said.
Foster also said that Starmer was implying with his tweet that WMP was willing to accept antisemitism. Foster went on:

The prime minister’s post could be interpreted as asserting that the advice given by WMP, or indeed the [safety advisory group’s] decision, were motivated by antisemitism. These are grave accusations. The prime minister has provided no evidence to support this assertion and again I submit, this question could be put to the prime minister and officials.

Foster said that when the match did go ahead, it passed off relatively peacefully. But the policing operation cost £2m, he said. He said WMP should get a grant to compensate for this.

Updated at 3.53pm GMT

3.20pm GMT

The Commons culture committee hearing where Samir Shah, the BBC chair, Sir Robbie Gibb, the former Tory spin doctor who sits on the BBC board, and Michael Prescott, the adviser who wrote the memo that has encouraged Donald Trump to sue the corporation for at least $1bn, is starting at 3.30pm. Frances Mao is covering it on a separate live blog which you can read here.

Related: MPs to question key BBC figures amid editorial crises – latest updates

3.15pm GMT
IFS thinktank questions wisdom of international student levy, saying it's 'unusual for country to tax its exports'

Sally Weale is the Guardian’s education correspondent.
The government’s planned levy on international student fees, details of which are expected to be fleshed out in this week’s budget, would constitute a tax on a major UK export, a leading thinktank has warned.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) called on ministers to explain the economic rationale behind the controversial surcharge, which vice-chancellors have warned will leave many already struggling universities even worse off.
In a new analysis of the government’s recent post-16 education and skills white paper, the IFS said:

The government has not yet set out any strong economic rationale for the introduction of an international student levy.
Providing education to international students counts as one of the UK’s export activities, and any lost fee income from prospective international students deterred from studying in the UK would amount to a reduction in UK exports.
While taxes on imports (tariffs) are fairly common, it is unusual for a country to tax its own exports.

The IFS also questioned the government’s claim that the money raised from the levy will fund the return of maintenance grants for low income students who sign up to priority subjects that support Labour’s industrial strategy. It said:

If total spending on maintenance grants is genuinely tied to the amount raised through the levy, this is unlikely to represent good policymaking as there is no reason that optimal spending on these grants would match – or evolve over time in the same way as – levy revenues.
The planned return of maintenance grants will be welcome to those who qualify for them, but restricting eligibility to those studying ‘priority’ subjects means only a minority of low-income students are likely to benefit directly.
As a result, these reforms are unlikely to resolve wider concerns about the generosity of support for students’ living costs, or inequalities in access to higher education.

The IFS intervention was welcomed by Universities UK, which represents higher education leaders. UUK chief executive Vivienne Stern said:

Having a respected body like the IFS call this a ‘tax on a major UK export’ must act as a wake-up call.
We urge the government to drop this proposal ahead of the budget ant take the necessary time to fully consider the implications of introducing such a levy.

The Department for Education says it has taken action to put the sector on a secure financial footing, including committing to raise the maximum cap on tuition fees annually and refocusing the higher education regulator for England, the Office for Students, to support universities to face the challenges of the future.

2.24pm GMT
Risk of Maccabi Tel Aviv facing antisemitic attacks not 'predominant' reason for match ban, police chief tells MPs

MPs have been told that the risk of antisemitic hate crime was not the “predominant” reason why West Midlands police wanted to ban Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from attending the Europa League match at Aston Villa.
Mike O’Hara, WMP’s assistant chief constable, said in a letter to the Commons home affairs committee that the threat of violence by Maccabi fans was a more important consideration.
The letter, which has been published this afternoon by the committee, confirms reporting by the Guardian last month which said that the fans were banned “after police intelligence concluded the biggest risk of violence came from extremist fans of the Israeli club”.
Keir Starmer and other political leaders reacted with outrage after the ban was first announced in October. Starmer suggested the police were accepting they would not be able to protect the Maccabi supporters from antisemitic violence, and he said: “The role of the police is to ensure all football fans can enjoy the game, without fear of violence or intimidation.”
In the Commons Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary, did not contest this intrepretation, saying that the police wanted to ban Maccabi fans “in no small part” because of the risk they faced being Jewish.
Ministers tried to get the police, and Birmingham city council’s safety advisory group (which took the final decision based on police advice), to reconsider. But these efforts proved fruitless after Maccabi decided not to apply for tickets for its fans anyway.
In his letter to the committee, O’Hara says:

West Midlands police identified the potential for antisemitic incidents in connection with the fixture. While the risk of antisemitic hate crime was acknowledged as a relevant concern, it was not assessed to be the predominant threat.
The principal risks outlined in the force’s assessment included spontaneous public disorder, antisocial behaviour, organised protest activity, and violence involving risk supporters affiliated with Maccabi Tel Aviv. The cumulative impact of these factors led to the fixture being classified as high risk, with antisemitism recognised as one of several contributing elements.

In his letter, sent in response to questions posed by the committee, O’Hara also presents WMP’s assessment of the conduct of Maccabi fans at a match against Ajax in Amsterdam in November 2024. He says:

Intelligence indicated that, on the day preceding the fixture, between 500 and 600 Maccabi fans deliberately targeted Muslim communities, committing hate-motivated offences including serious assaults on Muslim taxi drivers, singing hate fuelled songs and tearing down Palestinian flags.
Dutch police described the Maccabi Tel Aviv risk group as highly organised and experienced in violent confrontation. On match day, there were widespread incidents of vandalism, assaults, and running street battles. The Dutch police response saw 5,000 officers deployed over a number of days and mass arrests were made from both sides.

Yesterday the Sunday Times published a report quoting Dutch police as saying that this intelligence cited by WMP was wrong. For example, the police said that only 1,200 officers were deployed in total, and they questioned the claim that up to 600 fans deliberately targeted Muslim communities.
The report has prompted the Tory MP Nick Timothy to table an urgent question on this in the Commons which will start after 4pm. (See 1.05pm.)

Updated at 2.25pm GMT

1.38pm GMT
Lib Dems urge Starmer to rule out letting Russia rejoin G8 as part of any Ukraine peace settlement

The 28-point US peace plan for Ukraine that was leaked last week suggests that, as part of the settlement, Russia could be re-admitted to the G8 (or the G7 as it now is, following Russia’s expulsion after the annexation of Crimea in 2014).
The Liberal Democrats want Keir Starmer to rule this out. Calum Miller, the Lib Dem foreign affairs spokesperson, said:

Russia must not be readmitted to the G7. Putin is a war criminal who is also hell-bent on destabilising Europe and the rest of the international order. A ceasefire in Ukraine would not change those facts.
The prime minister should categorically rule out readmitting Russia to the G7. Anything less than a total block on Putin returning to the group would show authoritarians everywhere that aggression pays.

1.26pm GMT
Kyle tells CBI he will not ignore business concerns when deciding how employment rights bill gets implemented

Peter Kyle, the business secretary, told business leaders that their concerns would not be ignored when the government decides how to implement the employment rights bill.
The measure is close to becoming law. But, when he spoke to the CBI this morning, Kyle stressed that many measures will be subject to consulation before they are implemented. He said:

Our manifesto committed us to consult, to listen, and that’s what I’ll do.
The primary legislation that is going through parliament now commits me to consult in 26 different areas, the law is going to require me to.
So it has been, yes, a frustration of mine that some of the area that will be filled in by the result of a consultation that meaningfully engages all sides and all voices has been filled by people projecting on to that their worst fears are of it. But that is not the reality that I will be driving towards.

Kyle said “the voice of people who work in business” would be heard in the consultation process. He went on:

I will not pit employer against employee or employee against employer … And all of the conjecture that you’ve heard about what the bill will and won’t deliver is based in areas for which the consultation on implementation has not even started.

The bill is being held up because, for the third time in a row, peers have voted against some of the key measures in the bill, including the provision for workers to get day-one protections against unfair dismissal. The parliamentary “ping pong” process has been going on for almost a month now, and the bill will not get royal assent until either the Lords, or the government, back down.
Asked if the government would compromise to end the standoff, Kyle said:

I’ll do what it takes to get it through, because I need to get on with the real business, which is implementing it.

Normally in these circumstances the government just keeps sending the bill to the Lords, and eventually peers accept the will of the elected chamber.
UPDATE: Richard Partington has the full story here.

Related: Bosses should ‘engage’ with Labour on changes to workers’ rights, says business secretary

Updated at 1.27pm GMT

1.05pm GMT

There will be two urgent questions in the Commons today after 3.30pm, both tabled by Conservativess. A Cabinet Office minister will respond to a UQ from the Alex Burghart about the ministerial code, and then a Home Office minister will respond to a UQ from Nick Timothy about the intelligence used by West Midlands police to justify the ban on the Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from attending the Villa Park match.
Then, after 4.30pm, there will be an statement on the government’s critical minerals strategy by Chris McDonald, an industry minister.

1.00pm GMT

Keir Starmer had a brief meeting with Li Qiang, the Chinese premier, at the G20 summit in South Africa, it has emerged.
The meeting was not disclosed when Starmer was at the summit. It is understood that it was just a brief meeting, not a formal bilateral, and that Starmer and Li did not discuss anything of substance.

12.55pm GMT
No 10 says Britain 'steadfast with Ukraine to keep it in the fight'

Downing Street has said that the UK remains “steadfast” alongside Ukraine and determined to “keep it in the fight”.
Asked about the latest talks on a peace settlement in Ukraine, the PM’s spokesperson told the lobby briefing this morning:

The prime minister obviously welcomes the significant progress made at yesterday’s meetings between the US and Ukraine in Geneva. As the US, Ukraine, joint statement makes clear, yesterday’s talks were a major step towards a just and lasting peace for Ukraine.
Of course, there are some outstanding issues, but as both countries have set out, intensive work on the peace plan will continue in the coming days and weeks, you can expect the prime minister to continue his engagement with world leaders this week.
While diplomatic efforts continue, we will stand steadfast with Ukraine to keep it in the fight, and ensure the Ukrainian people can defend themselves during ongoing barbaric attacks like we saw last night, and in the long term.

The spokesperson also said that Russia “consistently pretends to be serious about peace, but its actions never live up to its words”.
Starmer is expected to host a virtual meeting tomorrow of leaders for “Coalition of the Willing” countries to discuss the Ukraine plan.

Updated at 1.08pm GMT

12.46pm GMT
Two peers suspended from House of Lords for breaking lobbying rules

Two long-serving peers are to be suspended from the House of Lords after a parliamentary watchdog ruled that they had broken lobbying rules.
Richard Dannatt, the former head of the British army, and David Evans (Lord Evans of Watford), were filmed breaking the rules in undercover footage recorded by the Guardian.
Henry Dyer and Rob Evans have the story.

Related: Two peers suspended from House of Lords for breaking lobbying rules

The Lord conduct committee’s report into Dannatt is here, and its report into Evans is here.

12.38pm GMT
Are Tories right to say Reeves using budget tax rises to fund 'welfare splurge'?

The Conservatives are attacking the budget by saying that taxes are having to go up to pay for extra welfare spending. Or, as Mel Stride, the shadow chancellor, puts it in an article for the Daily Telegraph:

That is exactly what Labour looks set to deliver at this week’s budget: a multi-billion-pound welfare splurge, funded by stealth tax rises on the very people who are already struggling.

This is one of those claims – very common in Westminster politics – that is technically true and wholly misleading at the same time. It is technically true because, if the government were spending less on welfare, it would need to raise less money from tax. But it is wholly misleading because welfare spending is not the main reason for taxes having to rise in the budget. (The downgrade in the productivity growth forecasts is the key factor.) And “splurge” is not an accurate description either.
In his Telegraph article, Stride says taxes are having to go up because Rachel Reeves is getting rid of the two-child benefit cap, which he says will cost £3.5bn, and because the government abandoned its planned cut to Pip disability payments in the summer, which will eventually cost £5bn a year.
But the Telegraph editors clearly thought £8.5bn sounded a bit low. Their splash story this morning says Reeves will increase benefit spending by £15bn. They have arrived at this figure by including the £1.25bn cost of the winter fuel payments U-turn, but also by including the £6bn cost of uprating working-age benefits in line with inflation. Citing this last number as evidence of a welfare “splurge” is unfair. By law, the government is obliged to uprate benefits every year, and even the Tories are not proposing to freeze universal credit payments.

12.04pm GMT

Q: Would more tax-free shopping for tourists help the high street?
Badenoch says, after Brexit, she thought tax-free shopping for foreign tourists would help British business. But she says she lost the argument internally, because other people in government were against the idea. She claims this was because they did not model the behavioural impact. (She is referring to the theory that, although the Treasury might lose from individual tourists getting a tax exemption, the overall boost to shopping would more than compensate for that.)
She claims Labour is also refusing to model the behavioural impact of tax policies. She says the government is not getting as much money as it expected from VAT on private schools because schools are closing and pupils are going to state schools.
(In fact, the early evidence suggests this has not happened.)
That was the last question.
Rupert Soames ends by again praising Badenoch for her stance on the employment rights bill. He says he has been employing people for 40 years, and has been trying to think what impact it will have on employment decisions. The effect will be “really bad”, he says. He says the bill will need “a lot of rethinking”.

11.54am GMT

Q: The last government was suspicious of industrial strategy. Do you think a national industrial strategy is a good idea?
Badenoch says the problem was that the strategy used to change often under the last government. That created uncertainty. That is why she favours simplicity.
She says the biggest thing the Tories would do to help business is their cheap power plan.
She says distributing grants from small pots of money does not amount to an industrial strategy.

11.51am GMT
Badenoch says she is getting better at being Tory leader

Badenoch is now taking questions. The session is being chaired by Rupert Soames, the CBI chair (and brother of a Tory peer). The first thing he said was “wow” as she finished her speech. He said the CBI has been attacking the employment rights bill almost as much as she was.
He starts with a question of his own.
Q: Do you think you are getting better at being opposition leader?
Badenoch accepts this. With any job you are doing for the first time, you get better, she says. She goes on:

I didn’t know anyone who was at their best on their first day. And in fact, you should be worried at anybody who’s at their best on their first day.

Updated at 12.10pm GMT

11.46am GMT

Badenoch says the government should be cutting regulation.
And she claims she can do this because, when she was business secretary, she was able to cut regulation. As an example, she says she ruled about mandatory ethnicity pay reporting.
She ends by saying if she wins the election she will repeal the main elements of the employment rights bill.

11.44am GMT
Badenoch says growth being held up because 'the state is too big'

Badenoch says the problem with growth in this country is not that workers don’t have enough right. It’s that “the state is too big”, she says.

Fewer and fewer people are working to support more and more people out of work and living on welfare. The rider is getting heavier than the horse.

11.41am GMT
Badenoch tells CBI employment rights bill not pro-worker, just pro-union

Kemi Badenoch starts her speech with an attack on the employment rights bill, as briefed by CCHQ overnight. (See 10.04am.)
She says provisions in the bill will allow unions to try to organise in any business with more than 20 staff. This is “industrial intimidation”, she says.
And she criticises the plan to remove the turnout threshold for strike ballots. Currently unions need to get a 50% turnout. But that will go under the bill, she says. She claims, in a firm with a workforce of 1,000, this could theoretically lead to a strike vote being valid if only two people voted in favour.
She accepts that is an extreme example, but she says it highlights the “absurdity” of the law.
She says the bill is not about giving workers’ new rights. It is not a pro-workers bill, she says; it is a pro-union bill.

11.33am GMT

Kemi Badenoch is addressing the CBI conference now.
There is a live feed here.

10.51am GMT
CBI chief Rain Newton-Smith urges Reeves not to impose 'death by thousand taxes' on business in budget

Rain Newton-Smith, director general of the CBI, opened its conference this morning by urging the government not to inflict “death by a thousand taxes” on British business in the budget.
She said the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, said she was committed to growth. Newton-Smith went on:

Prove it – against opposition, against short-term politics, be it on welfare, be it pension increases, show the markets you mean business,” she said
Short-term politics leads to a long-term decline, and this country cannot afford another decade of stagnation.
That means making hard choices for growth now before they get harder, having the courage to take two tough decisions rather than 20 easier ones.
Raising the headroom to make promises stick, it means one or two broad tax rises, rather than death by a thousand taxes.

Newton-Smith was referring to the debate about whether it would be better to raise money in the budget by raising a very large sum by increasing one of the main taxes (income tax, national insurance or VAT), or by much smaller increases across a wider range of options. Recently this has frequently been described as the “smorgasbord” approach.
With all the key budget decisions now firmed up (because of the necessity to get them assessed by the Office for Budget Responsibility), Netwton-Smith’s appeal has come too late. It is understood that Reeves has chosen a smorgasbord budget.
But ministers do want to assure business that there will be some good news for them in the budget. This is from the Financial Times’s pre-budget analysis at the weekend.

Although business will still be hit on November 26 — including through a crackdown on pension payments made through salary sacrifice schemes — ministers say things could have been worse, as the chancellor delivers a package of tax rises and spending cuts worth up to £30bn.
“There were things in there that we took out,” said one person close to the budget preparations. Plans to increase taxes on partnerships, affecting lawyers and accountants, were dropped, along with a mooted “exit tax” on people selling assets and moving abroad. Banks are expected to be spared from a mooted increase in taxes on their profits.

Updated at 10.52am GMT

10.36am GMT
Kyle tells CBI that growth remains government's key priority, and that there are 'reasons for optimism'

Peter Kyle, the business secretary, used his speech to the CBI to insist that promoting growth remains the government’s “number one priority”.
He also told business leaders in his audience that there were “reasons for optimism”.
At the election Labour said growth would be its key priority, but there has been less emphasis on this recently after business reacted badly to the employer national insurance increase in last year’s budget.
Kyle said growth remained the key goal, and he said that he wanted to show that he understood business thinking on this issue. He said:

My priority in this job is to break down the barriers to business growth, to create the right conditions for you to do what you do best. Creating wealth and opportunity.
I want us to turn the corner on the low, slow, uneven growth Britain has experienced for almost two decades.

Kyle praised the contribution of the business community, saying their resilience was a national asset.
And he told them there were “reasons for optimism”. The trade agreements with the US and India would help exporters, he said, the new partnership with the EU would help firms trading with the UK’s biggest partner, and he said “the biggest shake-up in the planning system in an entire generation” would also benefit the sector.
Britain was “turning a corner, and unlocking economic momentum”, he said.
UPDATE: Kyle said:

What we need to double down more on, which is my job, is to express why the singular importance of economic growth.
We inherited a situation when we came into office where we stuck in this buy slight grip of high taxes and low growth, and we are not going to break out of this cycle unless we do some pretty profoundly different things.
I really think we have inherited growth emergency, and we are still in it, and we will be in it for as long as we are unable to get our way out of this situation without increased economic productivity.

Updated at 11.02am GMT

10.12am GMT
Budget expected to include £14.5m investment for job support in Grangemouth after refinery closure

Severin Carrell is the Guardian’s Scotland editor.
The chancellor, Rachel Reeves, is expected to release £14.5m in extra investment for the Grangemouth area on Wednesday to support faltering efforts to provide jobs after the closure of Scotland’s only oil refinery earlier this year.
The PetroIneos plant closed down with the loss of around 450 direct jobs, because it was aging, loss making and uneconomic to upgrade. For many, it has become symbolic of the failure by both the UK and Scottish governments to plan properly for the transition to a net zero economy.
Despite publishing a detailed blueprint for attracting green, low carbon chemicals, fuels and plastics businesses to Grangemouth, boosted by £200m in UK government financing and £25m in Scottish government development funding, few new jobs have so far been secured.
With Labour facing defeat again by the Scottish National party in next May’s Holyrood election, Reeves is under heavy pressure to deliver politically useful spending decisions in Wednesday’s budget.
Amongst other Scotland-specific policies, she is being lobbied heavily to freeze or cut spirits duty to help the ailing Scotch whisky industry; cut or freeze levies on North Sea oil and gas; avoid any decisions which cut Scotland’s grant from the Treasury.
The BBC quoted a Treasury source saying:

We said we would stand squarely behind communities like Grangemouth, and we meant it. And we’re building on what we have done already by putting millions in as a starter to help put the community on a firm footing and strengthening its places as part of the clean energy revolution.
These investments will help deliver a fair transition for Grangemouth, securing jobs for local people way into the future.

10.04am GMT
Kyle says Badenoch would return to era of 'fire and rehire' as she calls for repeal of key measures in employment rights bill

According to extracts from her speech released overnight, Kemi Badenoch is going to use her speech to the CBI this morning to sugges that the employment rights bill is more of a threat to business than tax rises. She will say:

When I visit business and ask them what most causes anxiety, yes, they do talk about the tax burden.
But the single most complained about measure in this government’s programme is not a tax rise. It is the employment rights bill …
Take day one tribunal rights.
Under this bill, a new hire can turn up at nine in the morning and lodge a claim with an employment tribunal, before they’ve even worked out where the toilets are …
Then there is the de facto ban on seasonal and flexible work.
If a university undergrad chooses to get a Christmas job and works 40 hours a week in the three weeks before December, they then have the right to those same hours in January, February and March.
Great.
Except there’s no demand then, and revenue falls off a cliff.
A measure designed to ensure employment in January will effectively mean firms don’t hire in December … and everyone loses.

Badenoch will say the Tories would repeal “every job destroying, anti-business, anti-growth measure in this bill”.
In a response issued overnight, Peter Kyle, the business secretary, said:

Nobody did more to hammer business and employees than Kemi Badenoch did as business secretary. Her Tory party crashed the economy – leaving firms and families saddled with sky-high interest rates, rocketing energy costs, and higher prices. Yet they still haven’t apologised.
The Conservatives are clear: they’ve declared war on workers. Badenoch already described maternity pay as ‘excessive’ and her cruel plans would mean a return of fire-and-rehire and quashed wages for workers, while she drowns business in red tape all over again.

Updated at 10.05am GMT

9.49am GMT

Joel Hills, business and economics editor at ITV News, was not impressed by Peter Kyle’s claim on the Today programme that the pre-budget uncertainty has not been much of a problem for the economy. (See 9.30am.) Hill posted this on social media.

The business secretary, Peter Kyle, has just told Today that he “refutes” the assertion that three months of endless leaks, briefings and speculation about which taxes will rise in the Budget has harmed the economy. The governor of the Bank of England is clear that it has.

9.30am GMT
Business secretary Peter Kyle dismisses claim 'shambolic' pre-budget uncertainty has caused significant hit to growth

Good morning. We are two days away from the budget and, although we have a good idea of some of the main measures in it, the real debate about whether they are wise or not will not kick off until Wednesday afternoon. But Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, is already facing criticism about the handling of the process ahead of Wednesday, and this morning, with the CBI holding its annual conference, those comments are getting fresh prominence.
Put bluntly, expectation management is widely seen as having been shambolic. Two decisions in particular have backfired. First, this time last year, at the CBI conference, Reeves said explicitly that the 2025 budget would not involve tax rises on the scale of the 2024 one, but now it is clear that they will. Then, three weeks ago, Reeves gave a speech in Downing Street signalling very clearly to the markets, and to her party, that she was going to have to raise income tax in the budget, in breach of the manifesto. (Some of her allies now claim she was only floating an option, but that is not how her government colleagues understood it, or presented it, at the time; she was pitch rolling, not kite flying.) But then she changed her mind.
Economists are saying that that this lack of certainty has been bad for growth. This is what Andy Haldane, the former chief economist at the Bank of England, told the BBC yesterday.

We’ve had month upon month of speculation – fiscal fandango, basically. And that’s been costly for the economy. It’s caused paralysis among business and consumers. It’s the single biggest reason why growth has flatlined, it’s been grounded in the second half of the year.

In an interview this morning on the Today programme, Mohamed El-Erian, former chief economic adviser to Allianz, the German finance company, said the economic data suggested Haldane was right. He explained:

There are a number of data points that suggest that the prolonged speculation has flatlined growth. You see this in the latest retail sales numbers, which were the first to decline since May.
You see this in the decline of business confidence and consumer sentiment.
And there’s a general agreement that the economy has paid a price for a process that has been delayed, that has been full of speculation, and that has seen the government send conflicting signals.

And Rupert Soames, chair of the CBI, made the same argument on Times Radio this morning. Soames, a former chief executive of Serco (and brother of the Tory peer Nicholas Soames), said:

This whole run into the budget has been really difficult and I think that in any future budgets lessons will be learned not to indulge in the constant technically pitch rolling – all these different ideas being inflated and then withdrawn and then tried again. It’s been really confusing to businesses and it’s unnecessary … This frankly pretty shambolic process in the run into [the budget] has been unhelpful.

Peter Kyle, the business secretary, is the government speaker at the CBI conference. In an interview on the Today programme, when he was asked about Andy Haldane’s claim that pre-budget uncertainty was the biggest constraint on growth, Kyle rejected that. He said:

The biggest single challenge to growth in this country is the inheritance this government had. The Brexit deal alone has taken 4% of GDP off the whole economy. That is a fact. It far outweighs anything that speculation could and did cause.

He also defended what pre-budget briefing there has been in public, saying he and other ministers wanted to explain “the direction of travels”, while not pre-announcing budget measures. And he said some pre-budget speculation in the media was “wildly out of line”.
Here is the agenda for the day. Over the last few months the Monday agenda has often included a Nigel Farage press conference. But this morning he’s gone quiet, and is not facing the journalists. It’s not hard to guess why.
10am: Peter Kyle, the business secretary, speaks at the CBI conference.
11.20am: Kemi Badenoch speaks at the CBI conference.
11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
Afternoon: Keir Starmer is visiting a school in Cambridgeshire with Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary.
2pm: More in Commons releases new polling about public expectations ahead of the budget.
2.30pm: Steve Reed, the housing secretary, takes questions in the Commons.
3.30pm: Michael Prescott, the BBC adviser who wrote the memo critical of the Trump speech edit and other instances of alleged bias that ultimately led to the resignation of the director general, gives evidence to the Commons culture committee. At 4.30pm Samir Shah, the BBC chair, and Sir Robbie Gibb, the former Tory spin doctor who is on the BBC board and who has led attempts to fight supposed leftwing bias at the corporation, give evidence. We will be covering the hearing on a separate live blog.
4pm: Zia Yusuf, Reform UK’s head of policy, take part in a Q&A at the CBI conference.
4.40pm: Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, speaks at a rally in Llandudno.
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Updated at 10.07am GMT