Keir Starmer speech live: Starmer to pledge more police on the beat as part of Labour’s ‘plan for change’

Mission boards set up to oversee government progress risk becoming a “litter of Schrodinger’s cats”, a Tory shadow minister has warned.

Alex Burghart told the Commons: “The day after he entered Downing Street, the Prime Minister pledged to personally chair each mission delivery board to drive through change. We now hear that he is not chairing each mission delivery board. Why has the Prime Minister broken his pledge?”

Labour frontbencher Pat McFadden replied that the PM “is very engaged in delivery of these missions” and meets regularly with secretaries of states “for mission stocktakes”, adding: “That is the benefit of having this kind of programme, where the prime minister can personally hold secretaries of state to account and make sure that they are all focused on delivery of the government’s priorities.”

Mr Burghart urged Mr McFadden to “commit to regular published updates” about the boards, adding: “These boards are not cabinet sub-committees, which means they’re not authorised to make policy. The prime minister isn’t there, so his authority is absent.

“The government won’t reveal who’s on them, what they discuss, or when they meet. These are starting to sound like figments of the government’s imagination, a sort-of litter of Schrodinger’s cats.”

Referring to a statement expected later on Thursday, Mr McFadden told MPs: “He’s going to get a published update in a couple of hours, where he will receive a very full account of what they’ve been doing, how they’ve been prioritising their work and what the next steps are.”

Lobby journalists have gathered at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire for the prime minister’s big speech, which feels like a major reset after five troubled months of government for Keir Starmer.

The studios were once famous for classic Ealing comedy and Carry On films back in the 1960s and 1970s and after forced resignations, freebies, a Budget which has had the farmers in revolt there has been a “what a carry on” feel to this government so far.

The prime minister though appears to be returning to his almost forgotten missions to inject a serious sense of purpose back into his government with plenty of references to the “working people” he promised to help during the election.

We will hear a lot on cost of living, crime on streets but less about immigration caps.

Downing Street deny the speech marks a complete reset but this is a big moment for Sir Keir to get his government back on track before everyone turns their attention to the Christmas festivities.

Tory shadow home secretary Chris Philp has claimed that Labour’s new plans for a named police officer in every area are “completely dishonest”.

Labelling Sir Keir Starmer’s plan “a desperate attempted relaunch” for an “already failing” government, the former Home Office minister told BBC Breakfast: “Of course neighbourhoods already have Safer Neighbourhood teams with a Safer Neighbourhood sergeant who is responsible for that area … so that structure exists already.”

“Clearly I support having named contact officers, but it’s not a particularly new thing,” he added.

In our latest Politics Explained piece, The Independent’s associate editor Sean O’Grady writes:

The rather dry-sounding Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Act 2024 has received royal assent and is thus now law. It means most of the remaining parts of the British railways sector will be nationalised in the coming years – a quiet, slow revolution but potentially transformative nonetheless.

The “guiding mind” of Great British Railways will take over the contracts from the various, often foreign, operating companies.

The first to return to full public ownership under the new arrangements will be South Western Railways, which will be renationalised in May 2025, followed by c2c in July and Greater Anglia in the autumn.

Although she didn’t stay in office for very long, the former transport secretary Louise Haigh has left behind a considerable legacy. But it’s not that clear what happens next…

The home secretary has been grilled on where new community police officers are supposed to work, given that 600 out of 900 police stations have been closed nationwide as a result of cuts made since 2010, with the number in London falling from 153 to 45.

“They do have local community bases,” Yvette Cooper told LBC. “In my constituency, for example, as well as having the main police station for the district which is just outside my constituency, we also have a base that’s where the neighbourhood police work from as well that’s actually in the heart of my constituency.

“It will be different for different areas. Ultimately you’re right, if what you’re getting to the heart of is that the previous Conservative government really did decimate neighbourhood policing.”

Neighbourhood policing has been “decimated” in recent years, the home secretary has said.

Speaking as the government is expected to promise a named, contactable police officer for every neighbourhood in England and Wales, Yvette Cooper told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “This is about having strong neighbourhood policing teams that are properly connected with local communities.

“We’ve seen neighbourhood policing really decimated over the last 10, 14 years. Most people will tell you they don’t see the police on the beat any more.

“They also don’t know who their local officers are, but it’s been something that many neighbourhood policing teams have done for a long time, and certainly did back in the day – to have a named officer.”

Ms Cooper added: “Good neighbourhood policing is really the foundation of the British policing model. It’s always been the way we’ve done policing – it’s policing by consent in the communities. And we’ve lost a lot of that in recent years.”

Home secretary Yvette Cooper has said Sir Keir Starmer’s “reset” will “capture the priorities for people across the country”.

Asked why the PM needs a “reset” after five months in office, Ms Cooper said: “The prime minister is setting out today the plan for change and these really major milestones, that they capture the priorities for people across the country, the things that we’re determined need to change over the next few years.”

She told BBC Breakfast: “Before the election, we set out the big missions for the country. In my area, that was around making the streets safer, around reducing serious violence and also restoring confidence in policing.

“But now what we’re doing, after the Budget and the spending review, is setting out ‘what does that mean in terms of the real major milestones, the difference that we want people to see in their own communities, in their own towns’?.

“And for us, that means 13,000 more neighbourhood police and PCSOs back on the beat because we know that neighbourhood policing has been decimated in communities across the country under the Conservative government, and that’s what we’re going to be putting back on the street.”

But his announcement of “measurable milestones” in six policy areas – living standards, the NHS, housebuilding, education, crime, and green energy – has already provoked an intense debate inside the cabinet.

Some ministers worry the new targets will make it harder to achieve the reforms that will be needed when the government cannot afford to throw money at the many problems in public services.

They fear that chasing the new targets – to avoid headlines about them being missed – will drain so much of the government’s energy and money that it will leave little space for reform.

Read our full analysis here:

Sir Keir’s policing announcement is expected to be one of several focused on the “missions” Labour set out in its manifesto, which were securing the “highest sustained growth” in the G7, making Britain a “clean energy superpower”, halving serious violent crime, breaking down “barriers to opportunity” and building an NHS “fit for the future”.

Along with the targets set to be announced on Thursday, the Prime Minister is expected to propose a significant programme of public sector reform as his Government continues to face questions on how it will achieve its aims without further raising taxes or borrowing.

The Prime Minister will say: “Hard working Brits are going out grafting every day but are getting short shrift from a politics that should serve them.

“They reasonably want a stable economy, their country to be safe, their borders secure, more cash in their pocket, safer streets in their town, opportunities for their children, secure British energy in their home, and an NHS that is there when they need it.

“My mission-led Government will deliver.”