General election: Labour dismisses Tory announcement of plans to amend Equality Act – UK politics live

expected to reaffirm his commitment to a “triple lock” for the UK’s nuclear deterrent, and his aim to raise defence spending to 2.5% of gross domestic product “as soon as resources allow”.

Labour’s nuclear deterrent triple lock includes a commitment to construct four new nuclear submarines in Barrow-in-Furness, maintaining Britain’s continuous at-sea deterrent, and the delivery of all future upgrades needed for the submarines to patrol the waters.

We’ll bring you the key lines when he speaks.

GB News, has said that while Labour would not seek to rejoin a customs union with the EU, it would seek to change aspects of the current Brexit deal.

He told viewers:

It’s certainly true that since the botched Brexit deal was put in place, many of our businesses – exporters of food, fish, agricultural products in particular – have really struggled with the additional paperwork.

What Labour has set out is our ambition to have a veterinary agreement with the EU. That’s an agreement that New Zealand has with the EU, that removes the paperwork on food and drink exports. That would make a substantial difference to fishers and farmers right across the UK

Rishi Sunak has chosen not to offer and not to negotiate a veterinary agreement. He chose to not argue for one when Boris Johnson put through that botched Brexit deal. And I don’t think honestly anyone who voted leave was doing so to do over our fishers and farmers, quite the opposite. I think they wanted better support.

That’s why at this general election, Labour are saying we won’t be joining the single market. We won’t re-join the customs union. But we will seek to renegotiate a deal on veterinary agreements that removes paperwork. This is a sensible change to improve what was a pretty rubbish deal.

Labour battlebus tour, which she claims has a real “carnival atmosphere”.

In the clip Rayner says:

The main thing from the road trip, for me, is getting out there and meeting ordinary people, and I love it. Each area is different. But everyone is saying exactly the same thing – that’s that they desperate for that change.

You get a feel of how difficult it’s been. You know, Rishi Sunak and the Conservatives really seem out of touch. They’re saying that everything’s fine now, but actually, people have seen that their cost of living has increased, and people are just tired. They really want a stable government.

Conservatives of trying to wage a “phoney culture war” with their announcement on gender recognition changes this morning.

PA Media reports she told LBC News radio:

I do think this is a cynical distraction form their failings on so many issues, like the economy, like the cost-of-living crisis, like the NHS, like social care, like protecting our local environment and tackling the issue of raw sewage discharge.

I think the Government is failing on so many counts – time and again we have seen how it tries to wage these phoney culture wars.

On the specifics of the proposal, Liberal Democrats have said that, of course, where there is confusion within service providers there could be better guidance, but I really don’t think there’s any demand to unpick, or any need to unpick, the Equality Act itself.

It’s been in place since 2010, it includes hard-won protections for women and for trans people and lots of other different groups with protected characteristics.

Labour leader Anas Sarwar, Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross, and Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton will participate.

PA Media report Swinney said:

I am looking forward to tonight’s TV debate and I hope it is a respectful contest based on ideas to improve the lives of the people of Scotland.

I have been leader of the SNP for just a few weeks, and I have already united my party ahead of what is a very important election.

Scotland’s people and public services have suffered as a result of austerity, Brexit and the cost of living crisis, all of which were made in Westminster.

In tonight’s debate, and in the election campaign ahead, I and the SNP will set out a genuine alternative to the broken Westminster status quo.

The debate is on STV tonight at 9pm. Despite being the fourth largest party at Holyrood the Scottish Greens have been excluded from the debate, a decision that the party has described as outrageous.

detailed here by Jessica Elgot which would set out that the protected characteristic of sex means biological sex, allowing organisations to bar transgender women from single-sex spaces, including hospital wards and sports events.

She told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “What we are trying to do is reemphasise that sex in the law means biological sex. It always has done but there has been a lot of misinterpretation, and we are adding that clarification so that the law is clear.”

This was not, she said, a diktat saying that all such space should bar transgender women, just giving them legal protection if they did: “If a rape crisis centre decides that it wants to allow a trans woman with a gender recognition certificate, they will be able to do so. If they choose not to then they can’t be sued for that.”

Quizzed on R4 by Mishal Hussein about how this would work in practice, for example what documentation people might have to show to prove their gender, Badenoch became slightly impatient, accusing Hussein of “trying to trivialise what is a very serious issue”.

Things became even more testy when Hussein asked about then decision of Liz Truss to appear on a podcast co-run by Carl Benjamin, a YouTuber and controversialist who has previously made jokes about whether or not he would rape the Labour MP Jess Phillips.

Saying it was not up to her to have an opinion on this, Badenoch again complained about the line of questioning: ”I think it is trivial. It is unserious.”

Does such irascibility matter? Perhaps not. But it is the first time Badenoch has done a broadcast round this election campaign, and some of her colleagues worry she is too combustible to be considered as a future leader if the Conservatives lose the election.

Source: theguardian.com