Key eventsShow key events onlyPlease turn on JavaScript to use this featureA summary of today's developmentsUpdated at 19.55 BSTMatthew Taylor, the chief executive of the NHS Confederation, said there is “no fat on the bone” to fund staff pay rises out of existing hospital budgets.He told Channel 4 News: “It doesn’t look to us at first glance as though what has been identified by the prime minister and the chancellor as the money that will be available to pay for the gap between this offer and what is in the budget will be adequate.”Updated at 19.50 BSTBen QuinnMillions of public sector workers ranging from teachers to prison offers are in line for pay rises of between 5% and 7% as part of a government offer that could head off some strikes.Prior to the announcement, ministers had stressed the need for “discipline” at a time of rising inflation. Rishi Sunak warned that pay increases could not “fuel the fire” of inflation, which is at 8.7%.While some of the offers are generous enough to be accepted by union leaders, the government will be hoping that the impact on future inflation will be limited as additional borrowing has been avoided and no more money is being pumped into the economy.TeachersA 6.5% pay rise is being offered to teachers in England in what appears to be a package that also avoids problems as to how increases would be funded.The general secretaries of four education unions have said they will recommend that their members accept the offer and call off industrial action.While unions have been insisting that pay increases come with extra resources from the government rather than being met from school budgets, the government is funding almost half of the pay rise by “reprioritising” within its budgets.Updated at 19.55 BSTA former Tory MP who “saw the light” and switched to Labour in a high-profile defection has bid farewell to Westminster after nearly four decades.Making his valedictory retirement speech in parliament, Quentin Davies paid tribute to the NHS staff who saved his life after a near-fatal car crash.The former defence minister also praised the government’s support for Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression.Davies was first elected to parliament in 1987, representing Stamford and Spalding and then the new seat of Grantham and Stamford until 2010, when he became a Labour peer in the House of Lords.Updated at 19.50 BSTThe education secretary insists there will be no cuts to frontline education services despite teachers being offered a 6.5% pay rise by the government.Gillian Keegan said a reprioritising of the Department for Education’s budget would be enough to cover the cost of the wage increase, announced by the Government on Thursday.The new deal, approved by the Government after a recommendation from the School Teachers’ Review Body, is supported by the four teacher unions, the ASCL, NAHT, NASUWT and NEU.It is hoped that it will be enough to end the dispute over pay, with the unions balloting members with a recommendation to accept the pay offer.The news comes a day after members of the NASUWT voted in favour of industrial action, which, if the new deal is rejected, would see teachers stage continuous action short of strike action starting in September.Dr Patrick Roach, general secretary of the NASUWT, said the ballot has “unlocked months of prevarication” and members “can now expect more money in their pockets” as a result of previous action.Patrick Wintour
If there is one constant in the UK’s policy towards China over the past three decades it has been its short-termism and inconsistency, the scathing intelligence and security committee report on China rightly finds, comparing Britain’s endless course corrections with Beijing’s capacity to think strategically about how to advance the global interests of the Chinese Communist party.
If Downing Street thinks in terms of the next news bulletin, China has a planning cycle that in some of its documents takes it to 2049, as the ISC was told by one of its intelligence agency witnesses.Moreover, China brings a whole-of-government response, while in the UK too much strategy is conceived in the Cabinet Office, as its implementation rests with individual Whitehall policy departments, many with no security remit or expertise.Funding pay deals will be a “very big challenge” for many already squeezed public sector bodies, the chair of the Commons public accounts committee has said.Dame Meg Hillier told BBC Radio 4’s PM programme: “It’s difficult to know where it’s going to come from in already overstretched situations. And my committee of course looks a lot at hospitals, schools and other bits of the public sector and we know that they’re already very squeezed.“So it’s going to be some very painful choices for frontline leaders about how they’re actually going to fund this.”Hillier added it is “a bit robbing Peter to pay Paul”.The government has a “political imperative to try and deal with the strikes, but then they’re storing up other challenges” for the future, she said.Updated at 18.18 BSTThe Unite union general secretary, Sharon Graham, has said she believes the public sector pay offers from the government will trigger more strikes.She told the BBC the government “are paying for some of it and then they’re saying for the rest, which is about £2bn, that that’s going to come out of cut services and cut areas in departments. So all that’s going to do is to stress workers out, make them have to work harder, more people will leave.“I think we’ll be seeing a new wave of industrial action.”Updated at 18.19 BSTThe health and social care secretary, Steve Barclay, said the government’s acceptance of recommendations from pay review bodies and subsequent pay offer to health workers was “an opportunity for the NHS to move forward”.Junior doctors, who began their longest walkout yet in England on Thursday, will receive 6% rises and an additional consolidated £1,250 increase, while senior doctors, who are due to strike in England next week, will also receive a 6% rise.Barclay said: “Today’s offer, 10.3% for some doctors in training, some consultants getting pay rise of over £7,000, is a fair offer, a fair settlement.“It reflects the hugely important work that doctors do, and it’s an opportunity now for the NHS to move forward.”Barclay denied the government would be making department cutbacks to fund the increases and said the proposed immigration surcharge increase “better reflects the increased costs of providing NHS cover to those who come to the UK” and was a “fair and reasonable approach”.Updated at 18.20 BSTThe home secretary, Suella Braverman, has welcomed a decision to allow ministers to take a legal battle over its contentious Rwanda deportation policy to the supreme court.She said: “I welcome this decision to grant permission to appeal. We need innovative solutions, like our migration partnership, to stop the boats, break the business model of the people-smuggling gangs and prevent further loss of life in the Channel.”It comes after an order published by the court of appeal said it found there were “substantial grounds for believing that the removal of asylum seekers to Rwanda exposed them to a real risk of ill-treatment” by being transferred to countries where they were at risk and violated the European convention on human rights.It confirmed that any removals under the deal remain unlawful unless the ruling is overturned, but added: “Permission is granted to the [home secretary] to appeal to the supreme court.”Updated at 18.23 BSTThe Prison Officers Association (POA) said it will “not back down” in the wake of pay rises offered by the government.The national chair of the union, Mark Fairhurst, said: “Those members who received between 7% and 10% will not be fooled by yet another below-inflation award that will fail to convince them to stay in the service and will not improve their standard of living.“Years of pay freezes and austerity now need to be addressed in future pay awards.“We will now consider our options in relation to the failure to award a non-consolidated cost of living payment in line with other civil servants.”Updated at 17.22 BST