Starmer says ‘British pragmatism’ helped resolve Greenland crisis as he welcomes Trump U-turn – UK politics live

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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.

Steve Reed giving his statement on council elections being cancelled Photograph: House of Commons

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

Labour MP Andrew Gwynne agrees pension deal that could open path to Commons for Andy Burnham

Andy Burnham may have a new route to parliament after the MP Andrew Gwynne reached a settlement with the Commons that would allow him to retire and call a byelection, Pippa Crerar, Jessica Elgot and Josh Halliday report.

In her Sky News interview this morning, Kemi Badenoch also said she was opposed to the UK joining President Trump’s board of peace if Vladimir Putin is a member. She said:

We should not be, certainly, on any board with Vladimir Putin. That’s something I’m completely against.

Badenoch suggests Jenrick deliberately mispronounced her name in defection speech to annoy her

In an interview on Monday Robert Jenrick, who defected to Reform UK from the Tories, rejected claims that he deliberately mispronounced Kemi Badenoch’s name in his defection speech because he wanted to annoy or demean her. He also denied that this was an example of Reform UK sexism.

But, in an interview with Sky News this morning, Badenoch said that, until last week, she had never heard him mispronounce her name. “I’ve never heard him say BAD-enoch before, so this must be a new thing,” she said.

She also said that she thought his defection was just motivated by self-interest.

[Jenrick] has not been able to say where he disagrees with any of my policy positions. He’s criticising the last government, which he was in the cabinet a lot longer than I was. And I think that that’s interesting. It shows people that this is really about self-interest, not national interest.

Scottish government sets up agency to boost supply of affordable, rural and island homes

The Scottish government is to set up a housebuilding agency to increase the pace of supply, PA Media reports. PA says:

John Swinney, the first minister, said today the new body, More Homes Scotland, will be designed by housing secretary Mairi McAllan, councils and the Scottish National Investment Bank – which will look to bring in private funding.

The agency will focus on large-scale affordable housing proposals, rural and island housing, the acquisition of land and infrastructure work needed for sites that have stalled.

An update will be given to the Scottish Parliament in March, the Scottish government has said, with the hopes of being fully operational by the 2028-29 financial year.

Home Office says it has started moving migrants into military camp in Sussex, as part of move to stop use of asylum hotels

The Home Office has announced that it has started to move asylum seekers into a military barracks in East Sussex as part of its policy of getting them out of hotels.

In a news release in which it refers to them as “illegal migrants”, the Home Office says:

The site accommodates single adult male illegal migrants who are claiming asylum in the UK in basic, safe accommodation while their claims are being assessed.

The first 27 migrants have been moved into the site which will be scaled up to more than 500. They will only be housed there for up to three months while their asylum claim is processed before being removed from the country if their claim is rejected.

Moving to large sites like Crowborough is an important part of the government’s reforms to tackle illegal migration and the pull factors that make the UK an attractive destination while reducing the pressure on communities caused by hotels.

More than 400 hotels were opened under the last government at a cost of £9 million a day. Now just under 200 remain in use, with overall asylum costs down 15%, saving over half a billion in hotel spending last year as we deliver our commitment to close every hotel.

Commenting on the news, Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, said:

Illegal migration has been placing immense pressure on communities.

That is why we are removing the incentives that draw illegal migrants to Britain, closing asylum hotels that are blighting communities.

Crowborough is just the start. I will bring forward site after site until every asylum hotel is closed and returned to local communities.

I will not rest until order and control to our borders is restored.

Crowborough training camp in East Sussex, Photograph: Home Office/PA

At Davos Donald Trump is now launching his board of peace. Graeme Wearden is covering it on our Davos live blog.

Starmer welcomes Trump's climbdown on Greenland tariffs, saying 'British pragmatism' helped resolve crisis

Keir Starmer has welcomed Donald Trump’s decision to drop his threat to impose tariffs on the UK and some other Nato countries that opposed his plan to buy Greenland, saying “British pragmatism” helped to resolve the crisis.

In his first public remarks since Trump’s climbdown last night, Starmer also said he hoped that the US and its allies would now focus on the “hard yards” of guaranteeing security in the Arctic.

On a visit to Hertfordshire, he said:

I think you will have noticed that the last few days have been incredibly serious in relation to big things happening on the world stage.

And you may have seen but it is a good thing that yesterday the threat of tariffs against the United Kingdom was lifted, and now we can start hard yards and finding a way forward on security in the Arctic, which may seem a long way away, pretty remote, but actually it does matter to all of us in terms of the safety and security of our country.

And we’ve got through the last few days with a mix of British pragmatism, common sense, but also that British sense of sticking to our values and our principles.

Cooper suggests Trump's Greenland climbdown in part related to 'strength' of UK's influence in Washington

Here are more lines from Yvette Cooper’s interviews this morning about Donald Trump and his Greenland U-turn (of sorts).

• Cooper, the foreign secretary, suggested that Trump’s shift was in part related to the “strength” of Britain’s influence in Washington. Asked about this climbdown, she told Sky News:

I think it’s a reflection of the strength of our connections in Washington that we’ve obviously had a very significant shift in the president’s position over the last two weeks, the fact that we’ve been doing very determined diplomacy, not just directly the prime minister talking to the president, but also talking at every level.

I’ve spoken to secretary of state [Marco] Rubio, we’ve also spoken to many people across not just the US administration, but also Congress as well, and we have done so with our allies.

In truth, there were probably various explanations for Trump backing down, including, perhaps, that he was never 100% committed to seizing Greenland in the first place. Yesterday the Economist’s Tom Nuttall summed up the main ones.

If we stipulate that we just witnessed a modest climbdown from Trump on Greenland (no mention of tariffs, ruling out force), what should we credit?

- EU resolve on tariffs/ACI/tripwire force?

- market wobbles?

- GOP senators/admin “sensibles” having a quiet word?

• Cooper said that the UK had told the Americans “how damaging” Trump’s stance had been to US-European relations. She told Sky News:

I think it’s been us being very clear to US colleagues across the board that we are not going to move on those principles, alongside us putting forward very practical arguments about how damaging all of this has been.

• Cooper would not say whether or not she had seen the text of the deal agreed yesterday between Trump and Mark Rutte, the Nato secretary general, about Greenland.

• She told BBC Breakfast that she was not aware of mineral rights being part of those discussions.

• She said she hoped countries could now focus on an “Arctic sentry” as a collective security framework. She said:

I think this [deal] is about both two things. First of all, some direct discussions between the US and Denmark and Greenland as well – and secondly, about something that I’ve been calling for, that the UK has been calling for, which is a sort of Arctic sentry, which is very similar to the approach that Nato has taken to the Baltic sentry, to the eastern sentry, where countries work together through Nato.

UK government borrowing falls to £11.6bn in December

The UK government borrowed less than expected in December, official figures show, after stronger receipts than a year earlier, Tom Knowles reports.

UK will not be joining Trump’s ‘board of peace’ for now, citing Putin’s invitation, Yvette Cooper says

Good morning. In his Guardian article published on Tuesday, Gordon Brown, the former PM, said:

Years from now the history books will tell us that [Donald] Trump could have declared a quick victory in negotiations over Greenland – accepting the Danish offer of virtually unlimited military bases and access to Greenland’s 25 critical minerals.

Trump probably isn’t a regular Guardian reader, and so it unlikely that he has been taking Brown’s advice, but we don’t need to wait for the history books; last night, in line with the strategy proposed by Brown, Trump backed down from talk of invading or buying Greenland, and instead heralded a more limited “deal” as a negotiating victory.

Here is our story, by Lauren Aratani and Andrew Roth.

This ends a four-day crisis that has preoccupied Westminster. It also wiped out the No 10 news grid, which was supposed to be focused on cost of living announcements this week. On a visit this morning Keir Starmer will try to revive interest in one of those initiatives, the warm homes plan announced yesterday.

But he won’t be able to avoid questions about Trump, because the events of the last few days have made it harder than ever for the UK to go on treating the US as a reliable ally.

This morning Yvette Cooper, the foreign secretary, has been giving interviews. Asked about another tricky dividing line with Trump, she said that the UK would not be one of the initial countries signing up to his “board of peace” – a new body supposed to be taking charge of Gaza reconstruction, but one that Trump seems to view as a potential alternative to the UN.

Asked whether the UK would be joining, Cooper said:

There’s a huge amount of work to do. We won’t be one of the signatories today, because this is about a legal treaty that raises much broader issues, and we do also have concerns about President Putin being part of something which is talking about peace, when we have still not seen any signs from Putin that there will be a commitment to peace in Ukraine.

And to be honest, that is also what we should be talking about.

Trump says Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, has joined the board, although Putin himself has not confirmed that.

Aamna Mohdin has more about the board of peace plan in her First Edition briefing.

Here is the agenda for the day.

9.30am: John Healey, the defence secretary, is visiting an aerospace site in Edinburgh for an announcement about the Typhoon upgrade.

Morning: Keir Starmer is on a visit in Hertfordshire to promote the government’s warm homes plan announced yesterday.

11am: Eluned Morgan, the Welsh first minister, takes part in a Q&A at the Institute for Government.

11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.

Noon: John Swinney, Scotland’s first minister, takes questions from MSPs.

Lunchtime: Starmer hosts Mette Frederiksen, the Danish PM, at Chequers.

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