Braverman denies she will defect to Reform as IT outage forces Labour Cobra meeting – live

Labour’s House of Lords reform is a good start, says Alan Rusbridger – now we should ask them to finish the job and start getting some of these turkeys to vote for Christmas:

Sir Keir Starmer has condemned the “despicable” sentencing of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich by a Russian court on espionage charges which were rejected by his employer and the US as a sham.

The Prime Minister said the jailing underscored Moscow’s “utter contempt for media freedom” and called for the journalist’s immediate release.

Mr Gershkovich was sentenced to 16 years in prison after a swift and secretive trial in Russia’s highly politicised legal system.

The 32-year-old was detained in March last year while on a reporting trip to the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg and accused of spying for the US, which he denies.

He has been behind bars ever since, becoming the first US journalist taken into Russian custody on espionage charges since Nicholas Daniloff in 1986, at the height of the Cold War.

In a statement on Friday, Sir Keir wrote: “The sentencing of (Wall Street Journal) reporter Evan Gershkovich is despicable and only serves to underscore Russia’s utter contempt for media freedom.

“Journalism should not be a crime. Gershkovich must be released immediately.”

Four in 10 Conservative MPs are now on the party’s front bench after Rishi Sunak made further appointments to his interim opposition team.

The former prime minister announced a flurry of junior appointments on Friday following the unveiling of his temporary shadow cabinet last week.

Friday’s announcement means there are now 51 MPs on the Conservative front bench, amounting to 42% of the total parliamentary party and underlining how far Tory numbers have dwindled.

Around 10 of those appointed on Friday are also doing more than one job.

Andrew Bowie, the shadow veterans minister, is now also a shadow energy security and net zero minister.

Hampshire MP Paul Holmes has been given three jobs, shadowing the Foreign Office and the Northern Ireland Office while also acting as a Tory whip.

Other appointments made on Friday include Alicia Kearns, the former Commons Foreign Affairs Committee chairwoman, who has been made a shadow Foreign Office minister, and Danny Kruger, co-chair of the New Conservatives group, who has been made a shadow defence minister.

Whitehall crisis officials are working to end the “inconvenience” caused by the major IT outage hitting airlines, train companies and banks, Cabinet minister Pat McFadden has said.

An emergency Cobra meeting was held at official level – rather than ministers – on Friday morning to discuss the chaos, with a further gathering expected later.

Ministers are being kept updated and are in touch with their sectors to tackle the fallout from the IT failures, with Transport Secretary Louise Haigh saying she was working “at pace with industry” after trains and flights ground to a halt.

US cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike is “actively working” to fix the flaw in a software update that sparked the outage that knocked businesses and institutions around the globe offline.

In the UK, transport networks were thrown into chaos, GP surgeries were unable to book appointments or access patient records and Sky News went off air.

Mr McFadden, who as the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster is in charge of the Whitehall machine, told the BBC: “We’ve had a major global IT outage today, causing huge inconvenience around the world, particularly for people travelling, for media organisations and for some parts of the health care system.”

Pressed on what the Government can do to help people, he said the “first thing we always want to identify is the cause” and then “to make sure that a fix is put in place and that the inconvenience that is being felt comes to an end as soon as possible”.

The legal claims of several migrants once threatened with deportation to Rwanda could be resolved within a week after the Government pledged to process “paused” asylum applications “as a priority”, the High Court has been told.

Asylum seekers who arrived in the UK between January 1, 2022 and June 29, 2023 had been threatened with removal under the Migration and Economic Development Partnership (MEDP) signed with the east African country by the former Conservative government, a judge was told.

In February, the Home Office said asylum applications of those who could be removed had previously been “paused” amid legal challenges over the Rwanda scheme.

The plan was scrapped by the Labour Government shortly after it was elected earlier this month, but some migrants had already begun legal action over the so-called “pause policy”.

A preliminary hearing in London on Friday was due to hear the progress of the claims of two asylum seekers taking legal action, with the court previously told the Home Office had acted unlawfully by delaying its decision over their applications.

Tory leadership hopeful Suella Braverman has rejected suggestions she will likely defect to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK later this year if she loses the contest.

“There’s now so much antagonism towards Suella Braverman among MPs that there is now a generally held view that she will defect,” a senior Tory source told the i newspaper. “If she does, it will be a clear admission that she could not win the leadership and does not have the support of any MPs in the party.”

But a spokesperson for the ex-home secretary denied the claim, telling the outlet: “Suella has only recently been elected as a Conservative MP and has been a Conservative Party member for three decades.”

However, a Reform source was quoted as saying: “We expect her to take a tilt at the Tory leadership and then come over to us, perhaps in the autumn around conference time.

“She’ll fit in well.”

A Tory former education secretary who introduced the GCSE system in the late 1980s has branded the tests “outmoded” as peers debated the King’s Speech.

Lord Baker of Dorking welcomed Labour’s curriculum and assessment review, launched on Friday, which aims to ensure a child’s background does not prevent them from receiving a high standard of education.

Lord Baker, who went on to be home secretary in the early 1990s, suggested that GCSEs should be scrapped, along with other current assessments and curriculums.

The Conservative peer told ministers in the Lords: “Could I also surprise you by saying I welcome entirely all the proposals you put today to the House? I hope it’s the beginning of a great reforming Government.

“Endorsements by me of statements from the education department for the last 14 years have been rather rare events, but I hope this is a very good start.

“In your manifesto, you said that there’s going to be an expert-led review of the curriculum and assessment. Well done, congratulations, I urged the last government to do it again and again.

“Seven committees were set up that all urged that and said you should scrap EBacc and Progress 8 and also GCSEs, which I introduced, which I think are now outmoded.”

Britain is being held back by its “housing crisis” and the new Government has a “mountain to climb” to address it, according to Angela Rayner.

The Deputy Prime Minister said the new Labour administration has already taken the first steps in response, as she pointed to plans to reform the planning process to boost house building.

Ms Rayner, who is also Housing Secretary, added that the Government is also committed to the “biggest wave” of social and affordable housing for a generation.

In the King’s Speech, the Government said the Planning and Infrastructure Bill would reform the system to help meet the goal of building 1.5 million more homes over the course of the Parliament – deciding “how, not if” properties are built.

Opening day three of the King’s Speech debate, Ms Rayner said she pledged to “always tell it as it is” during her maiden speech in 2015 before adding in the Commons: “I think that’s one promise I have kept to.

“Now I intend to fulfil another because we promised the people of this country that we will serve their interests and not ours.

“That starts by having the honesty to say that we will not be able to put right the mess of the past 14 years immediately, but after just two weeks we have already made a difference.”

A migrant has died in the English Channel as “yet another life” was lost, following five other deaths of people attempting the journey in the last week.

Five people were pulled from the water after a “heavily loaded” boat got into difficulty off the coast of Calais, France, at around 1am on Friday, the French coastguard said.

Some 86 migrants were rescued and brought on board the French ship PSP Cormoran, but one unconscious person could not be saved, it added.

All the survivors were taken to Calais.

A Number 10 spokeswoman said: “It is a tragedy that yet another life has been lost and the Prime Minister spoke to such an incident just yesterday.”

She said the incident “underlines the stark reality of the dangers of these crossings and the callousness of the criminal gangs who are driving this”.

The spokeswoman said the Prime Minister and Home Secretary are “working to address this and step-up enforcement”, including through “work we’ll be carrying out with European partners”.

Britain is “absolutely committed” to a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine “when the circumstances are right”, according to the Foreign Secretary.

David Lammy said a future plan must guarantee the security of Israel before adding the Palestinian cause is a “just cause”, as he outlined a need to work with Arab partners and build up the Palestinian Authority.

The Cabinet minister also expressed frustration at Israel’s parliament overwhelmingly passing a resolution rejecting the establishment of a Palestinian state, in a largely symbolic vote ahead of Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s trip to the United States.

Speaking in the Commons, Labour MP Gregor Poynton (Livingston) asked: “Does the Secretary of State agree with me that there is no peace without a two-state solution and that those opposing a two-state solution are wrong for both Israelis and the Palestinian people?”

Mr Lammy replied: “The vote by the Knesset yesterday was hugely disappointing. We believe passionately in two states.

“And I say to those who reject two states, if you are a proponent of one state then you do have to explain how everyone enjoys equality under the law.

“And if you are a proponent of no state then you are effectively suggesting that occupation continues and that is unacceptable to, I would have thought, all members of this House.”