Asylum seekers could be housed in ‘modular buildings on industrial sites’ when hotels close, No 10 says – as it happened

New combined local authorities will get wide-ranging new powers under the government’s devolution bill, Angela Rayner has told MPs.

The deputy PM made the claim as she opened the second reading debate on the English devolution and community empowerment bill.

As PA Media reports, under the bill powers including transport, planning and housing will be devolved into new unitary local authorities. It will mean the end of two-tier district and county councils, and their replacement with one body.

Rayyner told MPs:

I worked on the frontline of local government, and I saw how it changes people’s lives.

So I know I won’t achieve our goals unless we fundamentally change the way our country is run.

And that means handing power back to where it belongs: to local people with skin in the game so that they can make decisions on what really matters to their communities.

This is what the bill will do: drive the biggest transfer of power from Whitehall to our regions and communities in a generation, and ending the begging bowl, micro-managing culture.

It will be making devolution the default setting, giving mayors new powers over planning, housing and regeneration to get Britain building as part of our plan for change, rebuilding local government so that they can once again deliver good local services that people can rely on, and empowering local communities to have a bigger say in shaping their global area.

This bill and our response heralds a new era for Britain. A new way of governing which puts politics in the service of working people.

James Cleverly, the shadow housing secretary, said the Tories were opposed to the bill. He explained:

This bill is not about empowering local communities, and it is definitely not about empowering local councils. It is about creating a cohort of puppet mayors controlled by [Rayner’s] department …

This bill wastes money while families are facing higher bills because of Labour’s mismanagement. This bill disrupts and distracts councils from building the homes that local people need.

The Conservatives have now released the full text of the speech that Kemi Badenoch gave in Aberdeen this morning.

As reported at the weekend, the Tory leader said that her party was now committed to “maximising extraction” of oil and gas from the North Sea. This marks a big difference from the government, which has ruled out issuing new oil and gas licences.

But Badenoch went further. She also said that the Tories would lift the rule saying companies in the fossil fuel sector cannot get access to export credit through the UK Export Finance agency. This is a rule introduced by the last Conservative government in 2021, when Badenoch was a minister.

In her speech Badenoch said:

It is time to overturn the absurd, anti-prosperity, anti-business, anti-oil and gas, anti-British ban on supporting UK companies who export their world leading technologies overseas. A ban that has done nothing but see business destined for British businesses go to companies from overseas.

Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, has complained about not being invited to attend the state banquet planned for Donald Trump when he makes his state visit to the UK later this month.

Farage expressed his anger about the snub in an interview with the Daily Express where he also claimed he could turf Keir Starmer out of office.

Referring to the state banquet, he said:

They wouldn’t invite me. Hey, we’re only 15 points ahead of the polls.

I’ve only known him personally as a friend for over a decade, but that shows you the attitude of this Labour government.

They’re insulting. They talk down to me. They don’t invite me to that.

I wrote to [Starmer] about members of the House of Lords. I haven’t even had a reply. And I’d remind Keir Starmer, I got rid of David Cameron, I got rid of Mrs May, if you go on being rude to me I’ll get rid of you.

Ed Davey, leader of the Liberal Democrats, who are well behind Reform in the polls but who have almost 20 times more MPs (72, compared to Farage’s 4), has been invited to the state banquet. But Davey has said he won’t attend as a protest against Trump’s support for Israel and its war in Gaza.

Hannah Al-Othman is a Guardian North of England correspondent.

The safeguarding minister, Jess Phillips, has told MPs a new statutory national inquiry into group based child sexual exploitation and abuse “will place victims and survivors firmly at its heart”.

In June, the Home Office said the government would adopt all 12 recommendations made by Louise Casey after her audit into group-based child sexual exploitation and abuse.

In a statement to the Commons today, Phillips said a new operation, Operation Beaconport, led by the National Crime Agency would “for the very first time” bring together “all of the relevant policing partners under one operation to ensure a swift and specialist law enforcement response to grooming gang offending”.

Detectives are using AI-assisted technology to help bring perpetrators to justice, Phillips told MPs, including tools that facilitate bulk translation of foreign-language text from seized mobile devices.

She also said data collection around ethnicity and nationality by police forces is “unacceptable and that this data must be improved”, adding that the government was “also looking at legislative options to drive forward these improvements”.

In January, Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, asked police forces to identify cases involving grooming and child exploitation that had been closed with no further action to pursue lines of inquiry and to reopen investigations where appropriate. Phillips told MPs 1,273 cases have now been identified for formal review, with 216 deemed highest-priority cases, which are those that involve an allegation of rape.

She also said that in the government’s first year in office, 827 arrests had been made nationwide, which marked an 11% increase on the previous year.

She said:

The government remains unwavering in its commitment to ensure that this inquiry is robust, transparent and capable of delivering truth, accountability and meaningful change.

We are determined to ensure that every survivor of grooming gangs gets the support and justice they deserve, that every perpetrator is put behind bars, and every case historical current has been properly investigated, and that every person or institution who looked the other way is held accountable.

Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour leader who is now forming a new, leftwing party with Zara Sultana, has congratulated Zack Polanski on his election as Green party leader. In a post on social media he said:

Congratulations to @ZackPolanski on your stunning victory.

Your campaign took on the rich and powerful, stood up for the dignity of all marginalised communities, and gave people hope!

Real change is coming. I look forward to working with you to create a fairer, kinder world.

In an interview this morning, Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, sounded not quite 100% certain that the first small boat asylum seekers would be sent back under the returns deal with France before the end of this month. (See 10am.)

The interview was raised at the Downing Street lobby briefing where the PM’s spokesperson was asked if returns would definitely go ahead this month. He replied:

We fully expect that to happen. That is obviously the basis on which we’re working with the French. As [Cooper] said this morning, these are new arrangements. They’ve not been done before. These are groundbreaking arrangements.

When you recall when the previous government struck a deal with Rwanda that never got the scheme up and running over the course of two years, we signed this deal, it came into force on August 6, we’ve detained individuals already, and the first returns from the pilot will take place later in the month.

Asked about Cooper’s suggestion that asylum seekers could be housed in warehouses when asylum hotels are closed (see 10.26am), the spokesperson said the government was looking at housing migrants “using modular [ie, pre-fabricated] buildings, on industrial sites, ex-military sites”.

Keir Starmer will hold a ministerial meeting on Tuesday afternoon aimed at going “further and faster” to get a grip of illegal migration, Downing Street said.

As PA Media reports, the PM’s spokesperson said Starmer stressed migration is “a central issue” to his government at cabinet this morning.

Starmer told senior ministers there was a need to “go further and faster” on tackling migration, the spokesperson added, as he gave a readout of the cabinet meeting.

The spokesperson said:

[Starmer] said it was easy to understand the frustration people feel at the level of illegal crossings and the site of asylum hotels in their communities.

He will be chairing a ministerial meeting later today to consider how we can go further and faster to combat illegal crossings.

This includes continuing to work with the French authorities, cracking down on pull factors and illegal working, including exploring options around digital ID, accelerating the closure of hotels and looking at better forms of accommodation, and driving further progress returning people with no right to be here.

In an interview with Times Radio this morning Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, said that she was in favour of flags going up “everywhere”.

Under the label Operation Raise the Colours, people have been putting up England flags all over the country this summer. While some of those involved are probably just motivated by benign patriotism, others seem to be influenced by far-right hostility to asylum seekers, as John Harris explained in a recent column.

If any Labour ministers are inclined to agree with John’s column (headlined “Flags as symbols of prejudice, not pride – and a distinct air of menace. Welcome to England 2025”), they are not saying so in public. Yesterday, Keir Starmer strongly endorsed flying the flag. And, in an interview this morning, Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, went further. She told Times Radio:

I’m going to confess I have not just the St George’s flag, I have St George’s bunting. I have also union jack bunting which is currently still hanging up in my garden shed. I have union jack flags. We have Yorkshire rose flags and bunting as well. I actually even have some Yorkshire Tea bunting but that’s probably going a bit far for your question as well.

So I do I think flags are really important. It’s what brings us together. I do think that people should be coming together around our flags and using the flags to come together and not being used for division.

Asked if people should be putting up flags on motorway gantries, Cooper replied:

Oh, put them up anywhere. I would put them up anywhere.

The Conservatives claim Zack Polanski’s victory in the Green party’s leadership election means the party has been taken over by the hard left.

Commenting on the result, Kevin Hollinrake, the Tory chair, said:

The last leaf has fallen from the Greens’ withering tree. A party once rooted in care for the countryside has been captured by hard-left activists more obsessed with campus culture wars than farmers in Herefordshire.

From Solihull to Derbyshire councillors are walking away because only the Conservatives are serious about backing family farms, stopping good farmland being smothered by solar panels and protecting the countryside with local communities.

While the Greens indulge in extreme left-wing fantasies and failed socialist economics, only the Conservatives are committed to real stewardship of nature, energy security through nuclear power and safeguarding the fields and villages that make Britain home.

Labour has responded to the election of Zack Polanski as the new Green party leader by attacking his stance on Nato. In a statement Ellie Reeves, the Labour chair, said:

Congratulations to Zack Polanski on his election as Green party leader.

We are living through serious times and the public rightly expect responsible and measured responses from all political leaders. Zack Polanski must level with the British people as to whether he stands by his recent failure to support continued Nato membership, and what it means for his party’s stance on Putin’s appalling illegal war in Ukraine.

The Labour government’s commitment to Nato membership is unshakeable and always will be.

In an interview with Byline Times in May, Polanski said that, although the Greens were formally committed to the UK remaining in Nato, he thought the election of Donald Trump as US president meant a rethink was needed. He said:

I think our Nato policy is out of date … Clearly Nato has got a lot more complex since Donald Trump has become President, and I don’t think anyone should consider him a reliable ally … I think the age of Nato is now fully over …

We voted at the last conference to maintain a relationship with Nato and reform it from within but I think we have reached a point where Donald Trump has made being in an alliance with America very, very difficult while he’s talking about annexing Greenland …

We clearly need to be making sure that our policy is meeting the moment, and I think the world is changing quickly, and the idea that we can reform Nato by working with Donald Trump at the moment in a so-called special relationship is an idea that’s on its last legs.

Q: And would you nationalise other industries, including banks?

On nationalisation, Polanski said Labour were terrified of nationalising water companies. That was a problem.

Steel was an “obvious” candidate for nationalisation, he said. He accused Labour of being unwilling to work with steel workers on a just transition to net zero.

He ended saying it was “a no-brainer than we need to be nationalising public industries”.

Q: [From Jim Pickard from the Financial Times] Would you rule out working with Keir Starmer in a hung parliament?

Polanski said it would be “wild” to rule out working with anyone on his first day. But he went on:

In Keir Starmer we’ve seen someone who got elected on the coattails of Jeremy Corbyn, who made lots of promises to protect communities, to bring about a leftwing change in this country, to stand up for some of the poorest communities.

And what we’ve had in Keir Starmer is despicable in terms of the politics. It is someone who has sold those communities out. He’s not just sold his party out, and the people who voted for him. The people I’m more concerned about are the people that are suffering in this country every day, who are worried about the future of this country, who see Nigel Farage give - and let’s call it what it is - a racist press conference, and not just not condemn it, but implicitly nod to it.

So I can’t imagine any scenario where I would want to work with Keir Starmer.

And I think in a scenario where we were in a hung parliament and we got that many seats, I think it would be odd that, if that many people had stopped voting Labour and switched to Green, to then work with Keir Starmer.

So I think you can clearly hear from my answer how I feel about that. But maybe he’s going to have a brain transfusion in the next couple of months.

Q: [From the Guardian’s Peter Walker] Are you concerned that being explicitly leftwing might deter supporters in rural constituencies?

Polanski says he does not accept there is a difference of that type between rural and urban voters.

As an example, he cites policies on housing – which can appeal in the countryside and in cities, he says.

And he says farmers are also victims of a power imbalance when they sell their produce to supermarkets.

He also says being willing to talk to Jeremy Corbyn does not mean that he is a Corbynite.

Parties can work together without being allies, he says.

And he praises the work that Corbyn is doing with his Gaza inquiry. He says he spoke to Corbyn yesterday.

What I see is a politician who is doing strong, principled work that aligns with the things I care about and the party cares about. And I think that’s a different and new kind of politics, and I think that’s a politics that’s really going to excite this country.

Q: [From Sophie Huskisson from the Daily Mirror] How many seats do you hope to win at the next election?

Polanksi says there is a diffence between the number he wants to win and the number they will win.

But he says he would like the party to win “at least 30 MPs at the next general election, if not more”.

Q: [From Tamara Cohen from Sky] Why do you think radical left politics can have a mass appeal when that did not work for Jeremy Corbyn? And can you work with him?

Polanski says he does not accept that ideas like nationalising water companeis, taxing multi-millionaires and billionaires and protecting nature are radical. These policies are popular, he says.

On working with Corbyn, he says it is too soon to know what will happen to the new party proposed by the former Labour leader.

But he says he agrees with John McDonnell, the former shadow chancellor, about the country needing, not an electoral coalition now, but an intellectual coaltion.

After his victory speech, Polanski had a Q&A with journalists.

Q: Why do you think your approach will be better than the one that brought the Greens record election results?

Polanski said he saw it as his role to facilitate the enthusiasm that people have for Green politics.

In his victory speech Polanski also said that this evening he would be attending a United Voices of the World event. It is a migrant union, and Polanski said this as “a total show of intent, of what this party is”.

He went on:

We listen to the poorest communities, whether they’re migrant communities, disabled communities, the trans community, working class communities, whoever needs us to have their back, we will be there.

We will be there to amplify their voices, to listen to the most marginalised and minority communities, to speak with them, not for them, and challenge truth to power, to take on power and wealth in this country, and we absolutely recognise that migrants are very much the backbone of this country.

Our country has problematic history that we also need to come to terms with, but also we have a beautiful history, a beautiful present and a beautiful future of what we are when communities come together.

So let’s have a very clear Green party message. Our communities will always stand together.

In his victory speech Polanski said this was the Green party’s time.

People in this country are exhausted. They are tired. They are sick of working long hours and never feeling secure.

They see water companies pumping sewage into our waters and charging extra for privilege, and they see how broken the old two-party system is, and we know this political space has been ripe for charlatans like Nigel Farage for millionaires who are pretending to serve working class communities but are actually backed by the same billionaires who are destroying our democracies, our communities and our planet.

So it is an absolute moral responsibility in this moment for the Green party to step up with the bold politics. I know that we have to say to people that we can and we will lower your bills, we will nationalise the water companies. We will hold this Labour government to account.

Because when we look at Keir Starmer and what this government have been doing, whether it’s the two-child benefit cap, the disability cuts, the genocide in Gaza, my message to Labour is very clear. We are not here to be disappointed by you. We are not here to be concerned by you. We’re here to replace you.

Zack Polanksi has won the Green party leadership – by a landslide.

He got 20,411 votes.

Adrian Ramsay, one of the previous co-leaders, and Ellie Chowns, running alongside him to be co-leader, received just 3,705 votes. They are both MPs, unlike Polanski, who is a member of the London assembly.

Lamb says Green party membership is now at a record level – 68,500.

Lamb thanks Carla Denyer, who is standing down as a co-leader, and Adrian Ramsay, the other co-leader, who is a candidate for the leadership with Ellie Chowns, another Green MP.

Lamb says this is a pivotal moment for the Greens, “as we watch the dusty old two-party system crumble away and we create openings as the insurgents”.

She goes on:

It’s already become a bit of a cliche, but we are really moving into a multi-party system, with the Greens poised to help create the next government.

And, like all the best cliches, it has the distinct advantage of also being for true.

We’re like a 50-year-old startup. We have deep roots in communities up and down the country where we’ve supported initiatives for people struggling with their bills, people wanting to open food banks to protect rivers, trees and parks, and that’s why people have gone on voting for green councillors in byelection after byelection.

The Green party is about to announce the results of its leadership election.

There is a live feed here.

Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, has suggested that warehouses could be used to house some of the asylum seekers currently being put up in hotels.

The government has repeatedly said it wants to stop the use of hotels for asylum seekers by the end of this parliament, but ministers have not given details of what replacement housing might be used.

In an interview with LBC this morning, asked what alternative accommodation might be used, Cooper said:

I think it’s a mix of things. First of all, you actually have to shrink the whole asylum system. So we actually need to have fewer people in the asylum system in the first place, fewer people needing accommodation. That has to be at the core of this. It’s been allowed to expand in a way that is out of control.

And then, yes, we do also want to see alternative sites, more appropriate sites, including looking at military and industrial sites as well.

Asked what she meant by “industrial sites”, Cooper said the Home Office would provide further details in due course. When the presenter, Nick Ferrari, pressed her repeatedy to say if this could mean asylum seekers being housed in warehouses, Cooper eventually replied:

That’s one of the things that’s been looked at. But we will provide updates when we’ve got the practical plans.

Cooper also said she did not want to announce measures before she knew if she could deliver them because that was “what the previous government did”.

In an interview with Sky News this morning Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, declined to guarantee that migrants will definitely be sent back across the channel this month as part of a returns agreement with France.

Asked for the exact date of the first returns, Cooper replied: “It will be later this month.”

Asked if the risk of the French government being toppled in a confidence vote might scupper the deal, Cooper insisted the UK would “continue to work” with France.

Pressed for a guarantee that returns would take place, she replied:

We expect the first returns to take place this month. But I’ve always said from the very beginning on this, it’s a pilot scheme and it needs to build up over time.

In interviews this morning Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, confirmed that the government will be contacting international students telling them that if they overstay their visas, they will be removed. The Home Office is concerned about the growing number of people who come to the UK legally on student visas but then claim asylum when they are meant to return home.

According to the BBC, students will be sent text messages and emails saying:

If you submit an asylum claim that lacks merit, it will be swiftly and robustly refused.

Any request for asylum support will be assessed against destitution criteria. If you do not meet the criteria, you will not receive support.

If you have no legal right to remain in the UK, you must leave. If you don’t, we will remove you.

In an interview with BBC Breakfast this morning, Cooper said there was a problem with international students “claiming asylum as they come to the end of their visa, even when things haven’t changed in their home country”.

She went on:

If nothing has changed in their country, people should not be claiming asylum at the end of a student course. We need to clamp down on that and that’s why we’re sending these messages to be very clear to people – the asylum system is not for people who just want to extend their visas.

Good morning. Kemi Badenoch has a big speech this morning (albeit one extensively trailed), the Greens are announcing the results of their leadership contest, but there is still considerable focus on what is happening in Downing Street, where Keir Starmer will chair the first cabinet to be attended by Darren Jones in his new role as chief secretary to the PM. As Pippa Crerar and Jessica Elgot report in the Guardian’s splash, Starmer’s mini-reshuffle is being seen as an attempt “to wrest back control of economic policy from the Treasury”.

Other papers have offered a more brutal intepretation, writing this up as Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, being marginalised.

This morning Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, has been touring the studios. Mostly her interviews have focused on the asylum system (more on that soon), but she was also asked about the Downing Street shake-up. Asked on Sky News if Reeves was being sidelined, Cooper replied:

I don’t think so at all. Quite the reverse. I think the prime minister and the chancellor have always worked extremely closely together and continue to do so.

The mini-reshuffle means that Starmer, who has not had an heavyweight economic adviser in No 10 with the clout to take on the Treasury toe-to-toe, now has Jones, previously Reeves’s well-regarded deputy, and Minouche Shafik, a former deputy governor of the Bank of England, reporting directly to him.

Asked if the reshuffle meant No 10 would have more input into this year’s budget than it had last year, Cooper replied:

In my experience through successive chancellors through very many years, ultimately, the chancellor always writes the budget, because that’s the nature of the complex mix of things, but always with conversations and discussions with the prime minister throughout, so you get that strong support.

(The more accurate answer is ‘yes, of course, that’s the whole point’ – as Pippa and Jess explain in their story.)

Of course, you would expect Cooper to reply like this. But Reeves will probably welcome what she said. And Reeves needs some good news. As Graeme Wearden reports, long-term government borrowing costs have just hit their highest level for 27 years.

Here is the agenda for the day.

11am: The Green party of England and Wales announces the results of its leadership contest. As Aletha Adu reports, Zack Polanski is expected to win.

11am: Keir Starmer chairs cabinet.

11am: Kemi Badenoch gives a speech to the Society of Petroleum Engineers Offshore Europe conference in Aberdeen. As the Tories have been briefing since the weekend, she will say that a future Conservative government would maximise the extraction of oil and gas from the North Sea.

11.30am: David Lammy, the foreign secretary, takes questions in the Commons.

Noon: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.

After 12.30pm: MPs start debating the second reading of the English devolution and community empowerment bill.

Also, at some point today, the government is publishing its new sentencing bill.

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