Gwynne steps down, paving way for Burnham to become MP
MP Andrew Gwynne, who was suspended from the Labour party last year over offensive WhatsApp messages, issued a statement on Thursday announcing that he will be vacating his seat, a move that will allow Andy Burnham a new route to Parliament.
Gwynne cites his health for why he has applied to the Chancellor of the Exchequer to seek the office of Crown Steward of the Manor of Northstead, a procedure that will allow him to step down.
“There will be a by-election soon and I wish my successor, whoever it is, all the very best in representing what I consider to be the best constituency in the UK,” Gwynne said.
More to come.
Key events
Gwynne cites health concerns for why he is stepping down as MP
The Guardian’s Pippa Crerar, Jessica Elgot and Josh Halliday have more on Labour MP Andrew Gwynne and his decision to resign, a move that opens up a route for Andy Burnham to potentially return to parliament.
In a statement, Gwynne said he this has “suffered significant ill-health over most of the 21 years” he has served as MP, which had been “greatly exacerbated by the impact of last year’s events regarding leaked text messages”. Gwynne was suspended from the Labour party after he was found to have been in a WhatsApp group – called Trigger Me Timbers – that shared vulgar and inflammatory comments about voters and other MPs.
He quoted his GP, who said that he did not think Gwynne would be able to safely “return to work as an MP”.
More here:
Gwynne steps down, paving way for Burnham to become MP
MP Andrew Gwynne, who was suspended from the Labour party last year over offensive WhatsApp messages, issued a statement on Thursday announcing that he will be vacating his seat, a move that will allow Andy Burnham a new route to Parliament.
Gwynne cites his health for why he has applied to the Chancellor of the Exchequer to seek the office of Crown Steward of the Manor of Northstead, a procedure that will allow him to step down.
“There will be a by-election soon and I wish my successor, whoever it is, all the very best in representing what I consider to be the best constituency in the UK,” Gwynne said.
More to come.
Ed Davey, leader of the Liberal Democrats, on Thursday criticised the cancellation of 29 council elections in May.
“Labour are running scared of the electorate and denying millions of people a voice at May’s local elections,” Davey said. “This blatant stitch‑up will allow some councillors to cling on to power for up to seven years without facing the voters.”
Davey continued: “Ministers shouldn’t just be able to delay democracy at the stroke of a pen, we need a change in the law so MPs can vote on any future election delays and hold the government to account.”
Starmer declines to say whether he supports Andy Burnham standing as an MP
Jessica Elgot
Keir Starmer on Thursday declined to say whether he supported Andy Burnham standing as an MP should Labour MP Andrew Gwynne stand down as expected.
“It is a very early stage, and the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party will set out the process in the usual way, as it always does for by-elections,” Starmer told broadcasters.
“Andy Burnham is doing an excellent job as mayor of Manchester. We work very closely together. We work very closely together. Last year, we were responding together to the terrible attack on a synagogue in Manchester, more recently, we were working together on Northern Powerhouse Rail.”
He continued: “I think Andy would acknowledge that working with this government has been much better than the experience he had of working with previous governments.”
Reform UK to legally challenge cancellation of local elections for 29 councils
Reform UK has issued a statement over cancellation of 29 council elections, alleging that “(t)he establishment is running scared”.
Steve Reed, the housing, communities and local government secretary, said that 29 councils will be allowed to cancel local elections planned for May because of reorganisation. The Tories said that the cancellation of so many council elections ‘totally unprecedented, but Reform UK that polling from JL Partners has revealed that 20 councils where elections are set to be cancelled would have been won by Reform UK.
Of the 29 councils, the party affiliations of the council leaders in 21 of the councils are Labour, while five are Tory and one is Liberal Democrat.
“Millions of people’s right to vote has been taken away,” Nigel Farage, leader of Reform UK, said in a statement on Thursday. “Reform UK are fighting this denial of democracy in the High Court.”
We have corrected the list of councils where elections are being delayed because Norwich city council is Labour led, not Lib Dem led. (See 12.38pm.) We are sorry for the error.
Union leader says it would be ‘democratic outrage’ if Labour blocked Burnham from being byelection candidate
Andrew Sparrow
Steve Wright, general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union, has said it would be a “democratic outrage” if Labour were to block Andy Burnham from standing as a byelection candidate in Andrew Gwynne’s seat.
Amid claims Keir Starmer’s allies on the national executive committee do want to stop Burnham being a candidate, Wright said:
It would be a democratic outrage if Andy Burnham was blocked from seeking selection as Labour’s byelection candidate in this seat.
In the event that a byelection takes place, as an affiliated union, the FBU will not stand by and allow senior Labour politicians like Andy to be carved out of this process.
Our union will fiercely resist any attempts to stitch up the selection.
It’s vital that there is a full and open democratic procedure to choose Labour’s candidate to fight this byelection.
Anything less would be unacceptable.
That is all from me for today. Vivian Ho is taking over now.
Anas Sarwar accuses Scottish government of negligence or criminal incompetence in relation to hospitals scandal
Libby Brooks
Libby Brooks is the Guardian’s Scotland correspondent.
This was a ferocious first minister’s questions, dominated by the revelations this week at the Scottish hospitals inquiry, most significantly the admission from Greater Glasgow and Clyde heath board after years of denial that there was probably a connection between contaminated water at Glasgow’s biggest hospital and infections contracted by patients who were treated there – including two child cancer patients who subsequently died.
Families have been fighting for years for recognition that dirty water and poor ventilation at the flagship Queen Elizabeth university hospital made their relatives – many of whom were already immuno-compromised kids – ill. A public inquiry set up in 2019 is now reaching its final stages and the health board has set out some dramatic final submissions.
These include admitting the hospital was under pressure to open before it was ready – in time for the 2015 general election. Labour leader Anas Sarwar believes this scandal goes all the way to the top of the Scottish government and today demanded John Swinney tell him who applied pressure to the hospital board.
Swinney denied there was any political pressure and also insisted the Scottish government wasn’t made aware of infection control concerns until three years later.
Sarwar, who already is calling for Swinney and others to be included in a corporate manslaughter investigation currently underway, said this amounted to negligence or criminal incompetence on the part of the Scottish government.
Government urged to legislate to ‘enable’ social media ban for under-16s after consultation, as compromise after Lords defeat
Kiran Stacey
Kiran Stacey is the Guardian’s policy editor.
Ministers will be urged to consider a compromise on a social media ban for under-16s after losing a vote on this in the Lords last night.
Peers voted for a ban that the government would have to implement. The government opposed this amendment, saying it wants its consultation on this issue to conclude first.
Fred Thomas, the Labour MP who has been at the centre of lobbying efforts for a ban, said today he would be happy for the government to pass legislation which would “enable” a ban to be implemented – but only after a consultation.
This stops some way short of the position peers voted last night, which was to introduce a ban within 12 months of the children’s wellbeing and schools bill being passed.
Thomas said:
I would welcome a government amendment to the children’s wellbeing and schools bill enabling the UK to remove access to social media for under-16s through secondary legislation, based on consultation.
I am confident that consultation and evidence gathering, including from young people themselves, will show what I believe is crystal clear: there is overwhelming and conclusive evidence that algorithmically addictive social media content is causing a public health crisis, and that parents, educators and children need government to step in and protect children.
Danish PM Mette Frederiksen thanks Starmer ‘from bottom of my heart’ for UK support during Greenland crisis
The Danish prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, has thanked Keir Starmer “from the bottom of my heart” for the support given by the UK to her country in the recent Greenland sovereignty dispute.
Speaking a day after Donald Trump dropped his threat to invade the island militarily, a self-governing territory which is part of Denmark, and later withdrew plans to impose extra tariffs on some Nato countries opposing his call for the US to be allowed to buy Greenland, Frederiksen said the UK’s support had been very important.
She said:
From the bottom of my heart, I would like to thank you and the UK for your very strong support to the Kingdom of Denmark.
I think everybody recognises that it has been quite a difficult time for us. And to know that you have good friends, strong allies, and that Europeans stand together, don’t get divided, and stick to our, as you said, our common values, even in a world that is changing rapidly, is extremely important for all of us.
She also praised what she called the “British way of doing things” – echoing comments made by Starmer himself, who has suggested that his calm, measured approach to handling Trump was quintessentially British. (See 10.13am.) She said:
You are very pragmatic. You have a cup of tea and then you think a bit about everything. You get the facts on the table, and then you find a way forward, and that’s exactly what we’re doing now.
Frederiksen ended her public remarks with a Beatles reference.
So just to finalise, I think we’ve got to get by with a little help from our friends, also in this situation.
Starmer said he was welcoming his Danish counterpart to the UK as “a friend and close ally of the United Kingdom for a very, very long time, never closer than now.
The two leaders were meeting in Chequers, the PM’s official country residence. Starmer normally hosts foreign leaders in Downing Street, and a Chequers invitation tends to be reserved for guests viewed as particularly special.
Streeting admits NHS ‘falling short’ in dealing with rise in number of referrals for autism and ADHD
Wes Streeting, the health secretary, has accepted that the government is failing to cope properly with the rise in the number of referrals for autism and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
In an interview with Radio Oxford, asked whether referrals for autism and ADHD was an epidemic the government is failing to cope with, Streeting replied:
Well, in a nutshell, yes.
We’ve got two challenges here.
One is to understand the prevalence of ADHD, autism, and then also separately but related in terms of prevalence, mental health.
We’re trying as a government to understand what’s driving this increase.
Is it simply awareness – and a positive awareness – that means that people who would have just gone unsupported and undiagnosed are now realising that they may well have ADHD?
And then secondly, meeting the demand because we’re really falling short on this in the NHS.
We are looking at this nationally … It’s clearly not a happy situation for people, and it’s one that I’m very worried about.
Healey announces investment to upgrade fleet of RAF Typhoon fighter jets
John Healey, the defence secretary, has announced a £453m investment to fit Typhoon fighter jets with “cutting-edge” radar systems, securing up to 1,300 jobs, PA Media reports. PA says:
Healey was visiting Leonardo UK’s Edinburgh site this morning, where he will confirm the award of a contract to upgrade the RAF’s Typhoon fleet.
Under the new contract, defence firms BAE Systems, Leonardo UK and Parker Meggitt will equip the aircraft with state-of-the-art radar systems over the coming years.
In addition to securing 300 skilled roles in Edinburgh, the work will secure 120 jobs in Lancashire and more than 100 in Luton.
In all, the full Typhoon programme supports more than 20,000 jobs across 330 UK companies.
In the Commons Robert Jenrick, the former housing secretary who defected from the Conservatives to Reform UK last week, conceded that he had delayed some local elections when he was in office. But he said that he had done so only for a year on the basis of legal advice saying it was “not legally sustainable to delay for a second year”. He said, as a result, elections even went ahead during Covid. He claimed that what Reed was doing because in some of these areas elections were also delayed last year. He claimed what Reed was doing was “almost certainly illegal”.
In response, Reed criticsed Jenrick for not doing anything to get rid of the waste and duplication generated by a two-tier council model when he was in office.
Tories say cancellation of so many council elections ‘totally unprecedented’, and claim Labour just scared of losing
In the Commons James Cleverly, the shadow housing, communities and local government, said Steve Reed described the elections in two-tier areaa where reorganisation is taking place as “pointless”. But Reed was trying to blame councils for wanting to cancel the elections, Cleverly said.
Cleverly accepted that some council elections have been postponed in the past. But he said the cancellation of elections on this scale was “totally unprecedented”.
He went on:
So I ask him directly; what was it about the Labour party’s collapse in the opinion polls that first attracted him to the cancellation of local elections? Is he as unsurprised as I am that the vast bulk of councils are asking for their elections to be scrapped are Labour-run councils?
List of 29 councils where local elections are being cancelled – including 21 Labour, 5 Tory and 1 Lib Dem one
Here is the list of councils where elections planned for this May are not going ahead. They are listed accorrding to the party affiliation of the council leader. In most cases, the council will be under majority control, but in some cases a leader affiliated to one party will be heading a minority administration, or will be in coalition with other parties.
Labour – 21
Adur District Council
Basildon Borough Council
Blackburn with Darwen Council
Cannock Chase District Council
Chorley Borough Council
City of Lincoln Council
Crawley Borough Council
Exeter City Council
Hyndburn Borough Council
Ipswich Borough Council
Norwich City Council
Peterborough City Council
Preston City Council
Redditch Borough Council
Rugby Borough Council
Stevenage Borough Council
Tamworth Borough Council
Thurrock Council
Welwyn Hatfield Borough Council
West Lancashire Borough Council
Worthing Borough Council
Liberal Democrat – 1
Cheltenham Borough Council
Conservatives – 5
East Sussex County Council
Harlow District Council
Norfolk County Council
Suffolk County Council
West Sussex County Council
Independent – 1
Burnley Borough Council
Green – 1
Hastings Borough Council
And here is the list of 63 councils that were asked if they wanted to delay elections.
UPDATE: This post originally said Norwich city council was Lib Dem. But it is Labour, and so the list, and the numbers, have been corrected. I’m sorry for the mistake.
Steve Reed says 29 councils will be allowed to cancel local elections planned for May because of reorganisation
Steve Reed, the housing, communities and local government secretary, is making a statement to MPs about council reorganisation.
He started by defending the government’s decision to reorganise local government in areas in England where two-tier councils are operating, with a county council in charg of some services and a smaller, district councils in charge of some other services.
(Other parts of England have unitary councils, which is also the system used in the whole of Scotland and Wales.)
Reed said:
In 2024, councils were on the brink financially, while a third of the country was left paying for the wasteful duplication of two tiers of councils for their area. This cannot be acceptable …
We also need to eliminate the financial waste of two tier councils so we can plough the savings back into the frontline services. Local people care about the most. Today’s announcement is part of that …
In many parts of the country, residents hard-earned council tax is paying for two sets of councillors, two sets of chief executives and two sets of financial directors. And it’s wasting tens of millions of pounds of taxpayers money.
The previous government sat back and ignore this problem. This government will not. And that is why we are committed to the most ambitious local government reorganisation in a generation.
Reed said the government announced at the end of last year that, in places where reorganisation is taking place, it was going to give councils the option of delaying elections if they felt that would allow reorganisation to proceed more quickly. He pointed out that people would be voting for council positions that would “rapidly be abolished”.
Reed said that 63 councils were consulted. He went on:
I have carefully assessed over 350 representations from those councils with elections scheduled in May and from others who are interested in the outcome. I’ve carefully considered arguments made about capacity reorganisation and democracy, and I’m grateful to everyone who took the time to express their views. I can now confirm my decisions to the House. I have decided to bring forward legislation to postpone 29 elections.
Reed said there was one further case he was assessing. And he said that, when the Conservatives were in power, they also delayed some council elections.
This is from Sky’s Sam Coates on the prospects of Andy Burnham being allowed to stand in a byelection if Andrew Gwynne retires from parliament. (See 11.21am.)
I’m told Morgan McSweeny thinks he’s got the NEC sewn up to block Burnham. But you never quite know.
If Burnham is granted permission to apply for the seat, the NEC does a long and a shortlist.
The long list over email, then the shortlisting is done by a panel.
The panel has 3 members of the NEC, one member of the board and a local constituency rep. The panel is chosen by the office of the general secretary, Hollie Ridley, who is close to Morgan, decides the panel.
So it’s far from clear he wins this
