Steven Morris is a Guardian reporter covering Wales.

The beleaguered Welsh Labour government has dodged a potential hazard after it reached a deal with Plaid Cymru that will allow its 2026/27 budget to pass.

Labour cannot pass the budget on its own because the party is two votes short of a majority in the Senedd – the Welsh parliament.

There had been concerns that there would be huge cuts to public services if the government could not get its budget through in January.

Plaid has agreed to back the budget in exchange for Labour agreeing that an extra £300m will be ploughed into health and social care and local government.

The first minister, Eluned Morgan, said:

This agreement shows the strength of the Senedd parties working together on shared priorities to deliver for Wales. Through this agreement we have secured the passage of the budget and prevented potentially catastrophic cuts to funding next year.

Rhun ap Iorwerth, leader of Plaid Cymru said:

Our aim in negotiating with the Welsh government was to look after public services, protect jobs and keep council tax bills as low as possible.

Plaid Cymru will not vote for the budget but will abstain to allow it to pass.

The Conservatives called it a “stitch up”.

But it doesn’t mean that Labour and Plaid are suddenly firm friends – the two parties will compete fiercely at next year’s Senedd elections, with polls suggesting Labour could plunge to third place behind bpth Plaid and Reform UK.

Amelia Gentleman is a senior Guardian reporter.

Leading campaigners for more effective regulation of pornography have proposed a series of measures aimed at tackling “barely legal” material, including content that features incest scenes or encourages child sexual abuse by casting young-looking adults dressed as children.

The Conservative peer Gabby Bertin, author of a review into regulating online pornography, and Beeban Kidron, crossbench peer and campaigner for child online safety, have laid down a series of amendments to the government’s crime and policing bill, aimed at removing loopholes that allow pornography sites to continue hosting violent and harmful material.

Aiming to ban pornography performed by adults mimicking children, sometimes filmed in children’s bedrooms surrounded by dolls, the peers propose extending the offence of making an indecent image of a child to include pornographic material depicting a child, where the role is played by an adult performer. This type of material would historically have been illegal to broadcast offline under British Board of Film Classification regulations, but is permitted online.

The campaigners also propose stricter control of incest pornography. “Research shows incest themed content is among the most recommended to new users on popular platforms – another stark example of algorithms encouraging harmful content,” Bertin said. The amendments would ensure that “protections we have enforced for decades offline apply in the digital age”, clarifying that “material which is too harmful to sell in a shop should not be freely available on a smartphone”, she said.

The campaigners want the legislation to add further controls on nudification technology, and suggest making it an offence to possess or obtain software designed to create nude images of another person without consent. They also propose the creation of a new body, separate to Ofcom but which would work alongside it, responsible for conducting spot checks on pornography platforms and able to act on reports of illegal content.

Citing research by the children’s commissioner, Bertin said “a 13-year-old boy is likely to have viewed incest, rape, and strangulation porn before his first kiss.” She went on:

“Online pornography is now so pervasive that it doesn’t just reflect sexual tastes – it shapes them. It normalises violence, distorts intimacy, grooms men and boys to perpetrate sexual violence, and has contributed to child-on-child sexual abuse,” she said, adding that the amendments “do not police private sexual behaviour” but “regulate an industry that has evaded scrutiny, and is causing demonstrable harm – normalising violence, sexualising children, and enabling abuse”.

In theory this afternoon the Commons voted in favour of the principle of joining a customs union with the EU (on the casting vote of the deputy speaker). But they were not even voting for an actual bill. They were voting on allowing the Lib Dem MP Al Pinkerton to bring in his UK-EU customs union (duty to negotiate) bill. After the results of the vote were read out, MPs were told the second reading has been scheduled for Friday 16 January. But if you turn on up 16 January, you will be disappointed. No time will be set aside for a debate. It never is for these 10-minute rule bills. The legislation is not going anywhere, which is why the vote was tokenistic.

But that is not the same as pointless. For the Lib Dems, it is a straightforward, modest PR win. This is one of their big causes, and they won a vote.

Does it tell us anything meaningful about Labour thinking on the customs union? Not really. Government MPs are told to abstain in these votes, and only 13 of them decided to ignore expectations and to vote with the Lib Dems. That does not mean only 13 Labour MPs favour joining a customs union; it just means most backbenchers decided (rightly) this particular division did not matter.

There was a different backbench response two months ago when Labour MPs voted down a Nigel Farage 10-minute rule bill on withdrawing from the European convention on human rights. Initially Labour MPs were told to abstain, but the whips changed their minds and allowed backbenchers to vote against Farage after some of them kicked up a fuss. That was different, though. Voting against the leaving the ECHR was voting in line with government policy. And it was Farage.

What was interesting, though, was the response of the Conservatives. Only one MP is allowed to speak against a 10-minute rule motion, and the Tory whips chose Simon Hoare, one of the least Brexity MPs in the party. And at no point did he make any serious attempt to defend the Boris Johnson Brexit deal that the Liberal Democrats want to replace. Even Kemi Badenoch is now admitting that it has been a Covid/financial crash-style disaster. (See 11.45am.) Instead – in what was quite an effective speech – Hoare argued against CU membership on centrist, pragmatic grounds. (See 2.54pm.) If you associate the Lib Dems with moderation, he sounded more Lib Dem than Pinkerton.

This matters because it sounded like a dry run for the debate the nation will have when a governing party (probably Labour) does eventually decide to advocate joining a customs union with the EU. What we learned today is that it won’t be a re-run of the Brexit wars. Instead we’ll get a party run by a hard Brexiter defending the trade settlement left by a hard Brexiter using the arguments of old-style remainer. The Tories are adept at shapeshifting, and this is the latest example.

Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, has issued this statement about his party’s narrow victory in the 10-minute rule bill vote on joining a customs union with the EU.

Today was a historic victory for the Liberal Democrats – winning a vote in parliament to finally end the economic nightmare of the Conservatives’ broken Brexit deal.

Across the country, people are crying out for real change and a solution to the cost-of-living crisis. A customs union with the EU is the single biggest step the government could take to grow our economy, put money back into people’s pockets and generate billions for our public services.

The prime minister must now listen to parliament and the public, drop his self-imposed red lines and finally go for proper growth through an ambitious trade deal with the EU.

The vote will have no practical impact, and so for Davey to call it “historic” is a bit of a stretch.

But that does not mean it is not interesting. I will post on what it does mean in a moment.

The division lists are out in the vote on Al Pinkerton’s 10-minute rule bill.

Of the 100 MPs voting in favour, 65 were Lib Dems, 13 were Labour, 8 were SNP, 4 were independents, 4 were Plaid Cymru, 3 were Greens, 2 were SDLP and 1 was Alliance.

And of the 100 MPs voting against, 89 were Conservatives, 4 were Reform UK, 3 were Labour, 2 were independents, 1 was the TUV and 1 was UUP.

We’ve just had the result of the vote on the Al Pinkerton’s 10-minute rule bill on joining an EU customs union. And, unusually, it was a tie – with 100 votes for, and 100 votes against.

As deputy speaker in the chair, Caroline Nokes had to cast the deciding vote.

She voted in favour – in line with precedent, which says that, when there is a tie, the speaker should vote to keep the matter being debated in play.

That means, technically, the Commons has given Pinkerton leave to bring in the bill, and a notional date has been set aside for its second reading.

But no time for it will be allocated on that date – and so it will not be debated further.

Simon Hoare, a Conservative, is speaking now. He says he is opposing the bill.

He says some of his colleagues will be surprised to hear him argue against Pinkerton. Hoare was opposed to Brexit, and so he is an unusual choice for Tories wanting to take on the Lib Dems on this issue.

He starts by saying the Lib Dems were the first part to call for an in/out referendum on EU membership.

He says he voted to remain in the EU. But he accepted the result of the referendum, and he says he does not accept the Lib Dem argument that Brexit has led to Britain losing influence in the world.

He says the government is trying to develop good relations with the EU without being part of it. MPs should let that process continue, he says.

He says businesses need certainty. They have got that now; they are getting used to the new trading rules with the EU. Joining a customs union would introduce new uncertainty, he says.

He says the Pinkerton plan would also require the UK to renegotiate the post-Brexit trade deals it has already signed.

And he ends by saying the EU does not want to be in a customs union anyway. He says he has spoken to EU officials about this idea, “and there is neither interest in it nor appetite for it”, he says.

MPs are now voting on the 10-minute rule proposal.

UPDATE: Hoare said:

As somebody who voted to remain part of the European Union in the referendum, and campaigned strongly to do so, I accepted the result of the referendum …

[This motion] would fundamentally undermine the welcome and energetic efforts of His Majesty’s government to continue to grow that iterative process of a relationship with the European Union without being part of it. That endeavour deserves the united support of all members.

We all want to see an increase in trade with the European Union and we all want to see the uplifting benefit that that has to all of our citizens.

But the proposal before us in this bill is not the way to achieve it.

In the Commons the statement on the grooming gangs inquiry is over, and Al Pinkerton, the Lib Dem MP, is now introducing his 10-minute rule bill on joining a customs union with the EU.

Up and down the country, businesses know it, the public feel it and it’s time that this House find the courage to lift our whispered voices and admit it – Brexit has been an abject economic failure.

It’s choked business investment, shattered economic resilience, strangled trade, shrunk the economy and left every single one of us poorer.

The economic benefits of Brexit were only ever an illusory mirage.

UPDATE: Pinkerton said:

The most dishonest campaign in modern British political history promised that Brexit would save £350m a week.

Instead, Brexit is now costing this country £250m every single day. That is why we have the highest tax burden in 70 years. That is why families face sky-high bills. That is why we remain trapped in a cost-of-living crisis.

Britain’s security services allowed a top agent inside the IRA to commit murders and then impeded a police investigation into the affair, according to a damning official report. Rory Carroll has the story.

Speaking in the Commons during an urgent question on the report, Gavin Robinson, the DUP leader, said that peace in Northern Ireland was “won at a high price: and that members of the intelligence services, the armed forces and the RUC risked their lives to protect others.

He went on:

The Kenova report confirms that there was no evidence of high-level state collusion between loyalist paramilitaries and the army or security forces, and it recognises the vital role of intelligence work in saving lives.

Yet it remains absurd that Kenova could not even name Scappaticci, despite his identity having been public knowledge for years.

Hilary Benn, the Northern Ireland secretary, accepted that the report did not find “any evidence of high-level collusion between the security forces and loyalist paramilitaries”.

But he said it was “shocking” to learn about individual collusion.

I do notice what they said about individual collusion, and I use the word shocking deliberately, because to learn now that serving police officers and serving members of the armed forces were colluding with those who were murdering people.

Here are the draft terms of reference for the grooming gangs inquiry.

And here is an extract from the Home Office news release announcing the chair of the inquiry and the terms of reference.

Longfield will instigate and direct local investigations in areas where it is suspected serious failures occurred, including Oldham. These will examine the actions of the police, councils, social services and other agencies, both locally and nationally, making sure any wrongdoing or cover-ups are brought to light and holding those responsible to account. Any evidence and findings from the Inquiry that could support putting perpetrators behind bars will be passed to the police.

The statutory Inquiry will have full legal powers under the Inquiries Act to compel witnesses to give evidence, require organisations to hand over documents and records, and make recommendations, both locally and nationwide, to make sure nothing like this happens again.

It has also been confirmed that the Inquiry will focus exclusively on grooming gangs and explicitly ask how ethnicity, religion and cultural factors impacted both the response from authorities and the perpetrators themselves. The government has committed £65 million to the Inquiry and it must not take longer than three years, putting a stop to victims waiting endlessly for answers. The draft Terms of Reference will now be consulted on before being finalised by March.

Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, is making a statement to MPs about the grooming gangs inquiry.

She confirms that the former children’s commissioner and Labour peer Anne Longfield will chair the inquiry.

Lonfield will lead the inquiry with two other panellists: Zoë Billingham, a former inspector at HM Inspector of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services, and now the chair of an NHS trust; and Eleanor Kelly, a former chief executive at Tower Hamlets council and at Southwark council.

The inquiry will last three years, Mahmood says.

And she says the terms of reference are being published. They make it clear that the inquiry must look at the background of offenders, including their ethnicity and religion, and “whether the authorities failed to properly investigate what happened out of a misplaced desire to protect community cohesion”.

The former children’s commissioner and Labour peer Anne Longfield will chair the national grooming gangs inquiry, Jessica Elgot reports.

Downing Street has rejected Donald Trump’s claim that Europe is not producing any peace proposals for Ukraine – while generally not responding to his latest diatribe against European leaders. (See 12.06pm.)

But Keir Starmer is due to meet the US ambassador, Warren Stephens, in Downing Street this afternoon. They are meant to be talking about trade and security, but Trump’s latest comments, which followed the publication of a White House national security strategy saying Europe faces “civilisational erasure”, will be hard to ignore.

At the Downing Street lobby briefing, asked if Trump was entitled to saying Europe’s ‘coalition of the willing’ has not produced anything positive for Ukraine, the PM’s spokesperson said:

Well I would reject that in terms of, you’ve seen the number of countries involved in the coalition of the willing discussions, you’ve also seen the work the UK has done in terms of leading the response on sanctions, including against the shadow fleet.

But we strongly support the US peace process.

Generally, though, the spokesperson declined to comment on Trump’s comments. Asked if the PM agreed with Trump about Europe being a group of “decaying” nations, the spokesperson said:

Obviously you’ve seen the strong relationship between the prime minister and the president, that closeness has seen a trade deal secured with the US, securing and protecting and creating jobs, and it’s seen close work with our closest security partner and clearly later today the prime minister will welcome the US ambassador.

The spokesperson would not even criticise the president directly for his comments about Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London.

The full transcript of the Trump interview is here, and in it Trump says:

If you take a look at London, you have a mayor named Khan. He’s a horrible mayor. He’s an incompetent mayor, but he’s a horrible, vicious, disgusting mayor.

Asked if Starmer would stick up for Khan, the PM’s spokesperson said:

The prime minister has a strong relationship with the US president and a strong relationship with the mayor of London and on both is committed to working together to deliver stronger outcomes for the British people right across the country.

Asked why No 10 was not sticking up for Khan, the spokesperson said:

I don’t accept that. As I’ve said, the prime minister has a strong relationship with the mayor of London.

Even before the budget, Kemi Badenoch was attacking it on the grounds that Rachel Reeves was raising taxes to fund higher benefits. (The real picture is more complicated than that, but there is some truth in the claim, which means it functions as a political attack line.) Today Badenoch doubled down on that, claiming this approach amounted to “economic suicide”. She said:

Labour’s budget was for Benefits Street.

They send a very clear message.

If you work hard, and do the right thing, you will get less.

And if you are on benefits, you will get more …

How are we funding that?

By taxing businesses, taxing jobs, taxing wealth creators.

The people in our country who get out of bed and make things happen.

This is economic suicide.

What was more significant was what she said about how the Conservatives would cut welfare spending. She did not set out a full programme, but she did give more detail about the sorts of cuts she would favour.

Restoring the two-child benefits cap

The Tories have already said they would restore the two child benefit cap. Today Badenoch produced new figures which she said explained why people are “angry” about Labour getting rid of it. She said:

Well under Labour, there won’t be an economy to attach for much longer.

In Hackney alone, 1,000 families on benefits with 5 or 6 children stand to gain £74 million from the lifting of the two-child benefit cap.

Some of those families will be getting more than £14,000 extra a year.

At the Budget, income tax thresholds were frozen.

Do you know how many people’s thresholds were frozen just to pay for those families in Hackney?

340,000 taxpayers.

To pay for 1,000 families.

No wonder people are angry

While those on the minimum wage agonise over whether they can afford another child.

People on benefits will get paid an extra £3,500 for every child they have because Labour is lifting the two-child benefit cap.

Labour has strong defended the move, saying it will lift almost 500,000 children out of poverty. But Badenoch also said she did not accept the definition of poverty used by Labour. (See 11.26am.)

Tightening the household benefit cap

As well as the two-child benefit cap, George Osborne introduce a cap on the total amount of benefits a household can receive when he was chancellor. Badenoch implied she would tighten this, saying it had too many loopholes. She said:

We will undertake a full review of the level and operation of the household benefit cap, which currently acts more like a sieve than a cap because most people on benefits avoid it through one exemption or another.

Exemptions like being diagnosed with anxiety which can be worth more, than £20,000 to some families.

Restricting access to sickness benefits

Badenoch has often alleged that it is too easy for people to get sickness benefits. Today she implied the government should “draw a line” and exempt some conditions. She said:

Quite simply, our sickness benefits system was not designed to handle the age of diagnosis we now live in.

So, we are also going to review which conditions the state treats as disabilities when it comes to benefits.

All of us will have physical and mental challenges at some point in our lives.

But in an age in which one in four people now self-report as disabled, it’s clear that we are now going to have to draw a line on what health issues the state can support people with.

Time limiting more benefits

Badenoch implied she would like to time limit more benefits. She said:

Work, contribution and purpose give you value, dignity. The chance to change your life’s circumstances and support the people you care about.

So, we are going to look at what form state support should come in and how long it should last.

Fraud and error linked to financial support programmes during Covid cost taxpayers £10.9bn, a report has found. Kalyeena Makortoff has the story here.

Donald Trump has attacked Europe’s leaders as “weak” in an interview with Politico. He criticised them in particular for not being able to end the war in Ukraine, and he complained “they want to be so politically correct”.

The US president did not specifically mention Keir Starmer as part his critique, but he did not exempt him either, and Starmer has been one of the leaders of Europe’s pro-Ukraine coalition that Trump was disparaging.

Jakub Krupa has more on this on his Europe live blog.

Jessica Elgot is the Guardian’s deputy political editor.

Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, is expected to announce the chair and panellists for the grooming gangs inquiry at a ministerial statement later today.

Louise Casey, who was asked by the prime minister to help reestablish trust in the inquiry after several survivors quit an advisory panel, said in a letter to the remaining survivors aiding the inquiry that she hoped the candidate would have the qualities they were seeking.

Casey, who authored a nationwide audit on the grooming gangs which recommended a full inquiry, told the survivors in her letter she hoped they would have the opportunity to meet the chair and panel this week and pledged to stay involved in the inquiry herself.

Earlier this year a group of women quit the inquiry’s victim liaison panel, accusing the government of attempting to widen its remit to consider other forms of child sexual abuse.

Several demanded the resignation of the safeguarding minister Jess Phillips, though a number of other women on the panel then wrote to defend Phillips.

The statement will start soon after 1pm. Treasury questions are running until 12.30pm, and after that there is an urgent question about the Stakeknife MI5 double agent report.

Here is the letter.

NWG is a charity working with abuse survivors.

In her speech this morning Kemi Badenoch admitted that Brexit damaged the economy.

In a passage aimed at Labour, she said:

Adam Smith once said, “There is a lot of ruin in a nation.”

For all that is going wrong now, and let’s be honest has gone wrong in the past, nations can absorb shocks.

The financial crisis, Brexit, Covid.

Countries with strong institutions and productive people do not collapse overnight.

Even foolish policies take time to do real, lasting damage.

A crisis is serious, but it is not fatal unless governments keep repeating the mistakes.

We made mistakes in government, but we have learned from them.

Badenoch was not an MP at the time of the 2016 referendum, but she voted to leave and as a minister in the last government she was an enthusiastic supporter of Brexit.

She has never abandoned this position. But since the general elections she has criticised the fact that the last government embarked on Brexit without having a clear plan for how it would implement it.

Labour is saying that the Conservatives would plunge children “back into misery” under Kemi Badenoch’s welfare plans.

Responding to her speech, a Labour spokesperson said:

The Tories’ message on welfare is: we broke it, now put us back in charge. Kemi Badenoch is delusional and is treating the public like fools.

Under the Conservatives, the benefits bill rocketed by £114bn and nearly a million kids were plunged into poverty. Now they want to pretend it didn’t happen. There is a simple choice at hand: lifting half a million children out of poverty with Labour, or plunging kids back into that misery under Tory plans.

Here is the full quote from Kemi Badenoch in her welfare speech saying Labour’s poverty measure is flawed. (See 10.20am.) She said:

Labour will claim that they raise taxes to eradicate child poverty.

We Conservatives need to take on this argument that raising taxes on working people is the best way to eradicate poverty. It is not.

Labour believe that the way to end poverty is give money to people in poverty, and give them more money until they’re not in poverty anymore. This has never worked.

The best way to get children out of poverty is for their parents to have jobs, and for these jobs to pay well.

But Conservatives also need to challenge bad metrics and wrong assumptions that create flawed policy.

Let us start with the metric of relative poverty which Labour use.

Relative poverty just tells you what proportion of households earn below 60% of median income. That’s not a measure of poverty at all.

It is a bad measure because in a booming economy, as incomes rise, more people can be classed as being in poverty even though their real income is rising.

And then during a recession like we had under the last Labour government, where GDP collapsed and unemployment went through the roof, relative poverty fell even though we were all poorer.

So it is not enough for us to challenge the policy. We have to challenge the thinking that underpins it. We need something better.

There are other ways of measuring poverty, but Badenoch did not say which one she preferred.

The Conservatives have criticised the Liberal Democrats for proposing a custom union with the EU by saying Ed Davey’s party is trying to “turn the clock back”.

In a statement on the 10-minute rule bill (see 9.58am), Priti Patel, the shadow foreign secretary, said:

Ed Davey and the Liberal Democrats have never moved on from the Brexit referendum nearly a decade ago. And they will never stop trying to reopen the debates of the past - whatever the cost - when the rest of the country has long since moved on.

The Liberal Democrats would rather try to turn the clock back, than focus on the difficult decisions needed to tackle welfare spending so we can live within our means.

What is interesting about this statement is that it contains no attempt to defend the Boris Johnson Brexit deal, which rejected custom union membership, as good for the UK.

There was more evidence of this yesterday when Lord McFall, the Lord Speaker, published the transcript of his latest Lord Speaker’s Corner podcast interview, with Michael Gove.

Gove, who is now a Tory peer, was one of the leaders of the Vote Leave campaign, and in 2016 he and colleagues highlighted the supposed economic benefits of leaving the EU. But, when asked about the tangible benefits, he gave a reply just focusing on a constitutional point. He said:

As for the benefits that Brexit has brought, I think the fundamental benefit is that it has made this place, not just the House of Lords, but parliament itself, more important.

Because one of my frustrations was, all the time that I was a cabinet minister, I would find myself being invited to agree or disagree with government policy in particular areas. And then, when I said I disagreed, being told that it didn’t matter because this was European Union law that we couldn’t alter.

Q: Is it realistic to get welfare spending back to pre-Covid levels?

Yes, says Badenoch. She says that is realistic.

Q: When you look at health benefits, are you just going to restrict mental health benefits, or is it all health benefits?

Badenoch says there are a lot of people with disabilities who can work.

She says it is not right that people should be able to get extra money for an ADHD diagnosis. She claims people who are anxious can decide not to work and to get benefits. That is not right.

But where the line gets drawn will be decided by the review, she says.

UPDATE: Badenoch said:

We have talked about a lot of low-level mental health issues that should not qualify [for benefits]. The ADHD diagnosis can get a family an extra £20,000. That is not right. But the detail of where we need to draw the line is going to be done by our economic unit …

Right now there is no line. People can just say that they can’t work, that they’re anxious and they get benefits. That’s why we have more children in workless households than the entire population of Estonia. That’s why we have more people out of work than the entire population of Norway. This is not sustainable.

Q: [From Sam Coates from Sky] Does poverty in any form bother you?

Of course, says Badenoch. She says at times in her life she did not have money.

But she says that at the moment there are people out of work who are better off than people in work. That does not fix poverty at all, she says.

She says we need a welfare system. It should be a safety net. But it should not be a welfare state, she says.

UPDATE: Badenoch said:

Of course it bothers me.

I remember a time when I didn’t have much money at all, I had to work at the same time as I was going to college.

I was on the minimum wage, fending for myself.

So I know what it’s like, and I know that there are many people in worse off situations.

But the way to deal with poverty is not by taking money from the people who are struggling and then giving it to those on benefits …

We need a welfare system. Of course we do. We need that safety net. But we mustn’t become a welfare state. That’s a completely different thing.

Badenoch says the Tories will review the way the household benefit cap operates.

This is a policy introduced by George Osborne when he was chancellor. It imposes a cap on the total amount a household can receive in benefits.

She complains there are too many loopholes.

UPDATE: Badenoch said:

We will review every circumstance in which benefits are currently paying more than work.

We will undertake a full eview of the level and operation of the household benefit cap, which currently acts more like a sieve than a cap, because most people on benefits avoid it through one exemption or another.

Exemptions like being diagnosed with anxiety. Being diagnosed with anxiety can be worth more than £20,000 to some families.

Badenoch says the Tories want to get people who are out of work back into the labour force.

Some of the party’s proposals were already announced at the party conference, she says.

But today the party is launching a campaign to “get Britain working again”. She says this will involve a review of the way the welfare state works.

Badenoch accuses Labour of making it harder for people to employ people with its taxes on business.

She says Labour is defending its proposals on the grounds that it will cut poverty.

But Labour uses the relative poverty measure, she says. She said that is not “a measure of poverty at all”. It relates to the proportion of household on less than 60% of the median income. That is a flawed measure because, if the economy is booming, more people will be classed as being in poverty, she says.

UPDATE: See 11.26am for the full quote.

Kemi Badenoch is giving a speech on welfare.

There is a live feed here.

Badenoch was introduced by Helen Whately, the shadow work and pensions secretary, who said the government jobs initiative announced at the weekend meant that the government was increasing taxes on firms creating real jobs to provide subsidies for artificial jobs.

And Badenoch is speaking now. She says on Friday she did a shift in a cafe. The cafe owner was in despair at the budget, she said, because she felt that taxes were going up to pay for people on benefits.

Today the Lib Dem MP Al Pinkerton will use the 10-minute rule procedure in the Commons to propose a bill for the UK to join a customs union with the EU. S0-called “10-minute rule bills” never get properly debated, and never become law, but they allow an MP to make a speech in Commons “prime time” defending a particular cause. Normally there is no division when the speaker asks MPs to agree “that leave be given to bring in the bill”, but sometimes MPs object and force a vote.

Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, has written to Keir Starmer urging him to allow Labour MPs to vote for the bill if there is a division. Presumably the Lib Dems are hoping that Tory MPs do object, because then a division will take place and votes are recorded. For campaigning purposes, it would be helpful to Lib Dem candidates to be able to say, when given the chance to vote for joining a customs unions, certain Labour MPs did not vote, or voted against.

In his letter to Stamer, Davey said:

Even if the government retains its position of ruling out a customs union - despite the significant boost to economic growth which it would deliver - it is only right that you grant your backbenchers the opportunity to express their support for it.

The government normally tells its MPs to abstain in votes on 10-minute rule bills, on the grounds that they have no practical impact, but in October it abandoned this position to allow backbenchers vote down a Nigel Farage 10-minute rule bill calling for withdrawal from the European convention on human rights.

Victims of NHS maternity failings received “unacceptable care”, leading to “tragic consequences”, Lady Amos, the head of an investigation into maternity care in England, has said. Jamie Grierson has the story.

Good morning. Last night the employment rights bill became closer to becoming law. MPs voted out the anti-government amendments passed by the House of Lords. But they also voted to include the compromise deal negotiated in talks involving unions and business: protection from unfair dismissal starting after six months, not from day one as originally planned, and alongside that the cap lifted on compensation payments for unfair dismissal. These concessions are expected to result in peers approving the bill when they next debate it tomorrow, clearing the way for royal assent soon afterwards.

The legislation will significantly strengthen workers’ rights, particularly by giving people the right to sick pay from day one and giving workers on zero-hour contract the right to guaranteed hours.

The debate in the Commons was short and straightforward, but it included a speech from Angela Rayner, the former deputy PM. Rayner championed the bill when she was in government and, when the government announced its surprise U-turn a week and a half ago, dropping the manifesto commitment to protection from unfair dismissal from day one, it was not entirely clear how she would react. Unlike some Labour MPs, she did not denounce the climbdown in public.

Instead, she focused on getting the government to agree that the new unfair dismissal law would come into effect earlier than expected – from January 2027 instead of October 2027.

In the Commons last night, some Labour MPs criticised the compromise. Andy McDonald said that the government was making a “profound mistake”, and John McDonnell said that the government was “breaking a promise” and that it should face down the Lords instead.

But, in her speech, Rayner defended the compromises, saying that there was a need “a fair balance” and that the government had “struck the right deal”.

She said she hoped the law would now be implemented.

We have a mandate for a new deal for working people, and we must and will deliver it. That includes replacing exploitative zero-hour contracts with an offer of guaranteed hours. For low-paid workers, the security of knowing what they will earn is not just a “nice to have”; it is the basis on which they can plan their lives.

But she ended her speech hinted that any further compromise would be unacceptable.

It has been a battle to pass this bill, but progress is always a struggle that we fight for. Its passage will be a historic achievement for this Labour government. It will benefit working people now and in the future. Now is not the time to blink or buckle. Let us not waste a minute more. It is time to deliver.

Here is the agenda for the day.

9.30am: Keir Starmer chairs cabinet.

10am: Kemi Badenoch gives a speech on the economy.

10am: Sir Olly Robbins, permanent secretary at the Foreign Office, gives evidence to the Commons foreign affairs committee.

11.30am: Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, takes questions in the Commons.

Noon: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.

After 12.30pm: The Lib Dem MP Al Pinkerton uses the 10-minute rule procedure to propose a bill for Britain to join a customs union with the EU.

4pm: Yvette Cooper, the foreign secretary, gives a speech at the Foreign Office to mark the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Locarno treaties.

Also, at some point today, the government is publishing the report from the review carried out by the Covid fraud commissioner.

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