UK politics live: Fierce row breaks out in Tory party as Badenoch vs Jenrick leadership contest begins

In an exchange in a BBC Radio interview less than two hours after Ms Badenoch and Mr Jenrick, South Holland and The Deeping MP Sir John said: “Robert has a much broader experience of government than Kemi. He is appealing and can unite the party. We don’t need an irascible leadership. We want a leadership that is emollient but principled.”

When Droitwich and Evesham MP Mr Huddleston was asked to respond to the suggestion that Ms Badenoch is “irascible”, he said: “Kemi can connect with lots of people. Her message is very different from the others. She starts from first principles and values that will unite all Conservatives. Other candidates have gone out there with very deep dive specific policies.”

Less than two hours after hard-right candidates Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick made it to the last round of the Tory leadership contest, the camps started attacking each other.

Jenrick cheerleader Tory MP Sir John Hayes took a sideswipe at Ms Badenoch, saying the Conservatives do not want an “irascible leadership” – a thinly veiled reference to claims that she is “abrasive” at times.

The Government will today announce details of new rights for workers, including plans to ban exploitative zero-hours contracts and “unscrupulous” fire and rehire practices which it said will benefit millions of workers.

Ministers described the Employment Rights Bill as the biggest boost to pay and productivity in the workplace in a generation.

Unions warmly welcomed the measures as a “seismic shift” from the low pay, low productivity economy they accused the previous Conservative government of presiding over.

There are 28 separate changes in the Bill, with most of them not expected to be implemented before the autumn of 2026.

Some measures, such as the right to “switch off” at the end of a working day, are not in the Bill but will be included in a so-called Next Steps document for further consideration and consultation.

Under the Bill, the existing two-year qualifying period for protections from unfair dismissal will be removed and workers will have the right from the first day in a job.

Ministers say this will benefit nine million workers who have been with their employer for less than two years.

Rachel Reeves may need to raise up to £25 billion from tax increases if she wants to keep spending rising with national income, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) estimates.

Even if the Chancellor changes the debt rule she inherited from the Tories, this would do “almost nothing” to ease the challenge on public service funding, the IFS said as it released its Green Budget report.

Because of her promise to meet day-to-day spending out of revenues, Ms Reeves would still need to turn to tax rises to avoid spending cuts and meet her pledge to borrow only to invest.

IFS director Paul Johnson said Ms Reeves’ first Budget, which she will deliver on October 30, could be “the most consequential since at least 2010”.

The report, funded by the Nuffield Foundation and using economic forecasting by Citi, analysed the challenges facing the Chancellor.

In a scenario modelled by Citi, the report concluded that if there are no cuts to spending outside of public services, Ms Reeves would need a tax rise of £16 billion to remain on course to balance the budget in 2028-29.

This would be on top of the £9 billion tax rise from measures set out in Labour’s manifesto – adding up to almost £25 billion in total.

The next decade of workplace pensions saving should be more flexible and help low earners to build up a savings safety net that they can draw on before they retire, according to a think tank.

The Resolution Foundation said more focus is needed on addressing the different challenges faced by low, middle and higher earners.

It said the first decade of automatic enrolment into workplace pensions has improved private pension coverage and boosted people’s savings pots.

But while a “one-size-fits-all” approach has worked well for the first chapter of auto-enrolment, the next chapter will require both a boost to saving rates and a more flexible approach, to reflect the different challenges that low, middle and higher earners face, it added.

The report argues that default contribution rates into auto-enrolment should continue to rise over the next decade, initially from 8% to 10%.

Primary schools in England struggling with falling pupil numbers could be forced to run mixed-age classes to cope financially, a report has suggested.

In extreme cases, some schools with many unfilled places may have to close in the future due to budgetary pressures, according to an analysis.

The percentage of primary school places that are unfilled is projected to rise from 12% to 16% over the next five years, the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) report said.

In Inner London, unfilled places are projected to rise from 20% to 30% over the same period.

The report said: “The combined picture suggests that continuing falling pupil numbers will cause more primary schools to face significant financial strife in future unless they find ways to cut costs substantially or funding is significantly increased.”

It added: “One possibility is that schools may look to create mixed-age classes in an effort to save the cost of teachers and teaching assistants.”

The Government could offer “parachute payments” to give schools some “breathing room” whilst pupil numbers are falling quickly, it suggested.

The UK has fallen further behind the United States in a league table of the countries that educate the most serving world leaders who studied abroad.

Of the current serving presidents, prime ministers and monarchs educated at a university outside their own home country, 70 received higher education in the US compared to 58 in the UK.

The gap between the US and the UK is the largest it has been since the Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi) think tank first launched the annual “soft-power index” in 2017.

Nick Hillman, director of Hepi, has warned that the gap between these two countries could widen further in future years because of the former UK Government’s immigration policies affecting international students.

He told the PA news agency: “We have sowed the seeds for our own further relative decline and we have done it knowingly.”

The UK’s decision to hand over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius has been described as the “second great betrayal of the Chagossian people”.

The Chagos Islands have been in British hands for more than 200 years, but after Mauritius gained independence from France in the late 1960s, the inhabitants of the islands were forcibly expelled to make way for a UK-US military base on Diego Garcia.

Many Chagossians now live in the UK, Mauritius or the Seychelles, but the new deal will make way for them to be able to return to the islands, except Diego Garcia itself.

Shadow Foreign Office minister Lord Callanan said: “The transfer of the British Indian Ocean Territory to Mauritius is a shameful day for our country.

“This is the second great betrayal of the Chagossian people under a Labour Government.

“In 1967, Harold Wilson’s Government forcibly evicted the Chagossian people from their homes.

“Now, in 2024, the Chagossians, who have no say in these negotiations, have been handed over to a foreign power that is in many ways different from their culture and lifestyles.”