Starmer says UK will host meeting later this week with other nations on the reopening of the strait of Hormuz – UK politics live

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Q: [From Andy Bell from 5 News] Isn’t it time to tell people they need to start changing their behaviour because of this crisis?

Starmer repeats points he has already made, saying the government has a five-point plan, it is monitoring the situtation, and de-escalation is neeed.

Q: Do you think people should change their behaviour now, in terms of using petrol?

Starmer says the government is monitoring the situation carefully. He says the best thing that could happen for petrol prices would be de-escalation in the Gulf.

Starmer suggests Trump's Nato threat an attempt to put pressure on UK and other allies

Q: [From ITV’s Harry Horton] Donald Trump says today he might pull out of Nato. Is your reference to a closer relationship with the EU an acknowledgment that the relationship with the US is changing?

Starmer replies:

Firstly, Nato is the single most effective military alliance the world has ever seen. And it has kept us safe for many decades. And we are fully committed to Nato.

Secondly, that, whatever the pressure on me and others, whatever the noise, I’m going to act in the British national interest in all the decisions that I make.

And that’s why I’ve been absolutely clear that this is not our war, and we’re not going to get dragged into it.

But I’m equally clear that, when it comes to defence and security and our economic future, we have to have closer ties with Europe.

Starmer is now taking questions.

Q: [From the BBC’s Henry Zeffman] No one thinks the government will push ahead with the fuel duty rise in the autumn. Can you confirm it won’t happen?

Starmer says fuel duty is frozen until September. The government will keep this under review, he says.

Starmer says summit with EU later this year will lead to 'more ambitious' plans for cooperation

Starmer says he will push for a closer relationship with the EU at a summit coming up later this year.

As the chancellor has rightly pointed out, Brexit did deep damage to our economy and the opportunities to strengthen our security and cut the cost of living are simply too big to ignore.

So in the coming weeks, we will announce a new summit with our EU partners.

And I can tell you that at that summit the UK will not just ratify existing commitments made at last year’s summit.

We want to be more ambitious, closer economic cooperation, closer security cooperation, a partnership that recognises our shared values, our shared interest and our shared future.

Starmer says, with global volatility, UK's long-term national interest requires 'closer partnership' with EU

Starmer rattles through a list of other measures taken by the government to help with the cost of living.

But he says, in the future, “it is not going to be easy”.

He goes on:

We will continue to stand up for the British national interest, and we continue to do what we must to guide our country calmly through this storm.

However, it is increasingly clear that as the world continues down this volatile path, our long-term national interest requires closer partnership with our allies in Europe and with the European Union.

Starmer says he understands why people are concerned about the cost of living.

He says he has already set out a five-point plan to deal with the crisis.

And he says the government was already working on measures to make Britain more secure and resilient.

Just look at what’s happening today. Today your energy bills will be cut because of the action that we took at the budget. And whatever happens in Iran, that price is now fixed until July.

Starmer says UK to host meeting later this week with other nations willing to work together to reopen strait of Hormuz

Keir Starmer is speaking now.

He says the UK has been speaking to nations interested in helping to keep the strait of Hormuz open.

And he says Yvette Cooper, the foreign secretary, will chair a meeting later this week with counterparts from other countries who are interested in helping.

He says:

The most effective way we can support the cost of living in Britain is to push for de-escalation in the Middle East, and a reopening of the strait of Hormuz, which is such a vital route for energy.

To that end, we’re exploring each and every diplomatic avenue that is available to us.

The foreign secretary and the chancellor have met their counterparts in the G7. The defence secretary has been in the Middle East speaking to our partners, and the UK has now brought together 35 nations around our statement of intent to push as one for maritime security across the Gulf.

And today I can announce that later this week, the foreign secretary will host a meeting that brings those nations together for the first time, where we will assess all viable diplomatic and political measures that we can take to restore freedom of navigation, guarantee the safety of trapped ships and seafarers, and resume the movement of vital commodities.

'You don't even have a navy' - Trump returns to taunting Starmer and UK

Here are some extracts from Donald Trump’s interview with the Telegraph’s Connor Stringer.

Asked if he would reconsider US membership of Nato, Trump said:

Yes, I would say [it’s] beyond reconsideration.

I was never swayed by Nato. I always knew they were a paper tiger, and Putin knows that too, by the way.

Referring to the UK, he said:

You don’t even have a navy. You’re too old and had aircraft carriers that didn’t work.

Asked if he thought Keir Starmer should spend more on defence, Trump said:

I’m not going to tell him what to do. He can do whatever he wants. It doesn’t matter. All Starmer wants is costly windmills that are driving your energy prices through the roof.

Trump claims he is considering taking US out of Nato

Keir Starmer’s press conference is now due to start at 10.15am.

To liven things up, the Telegraph has just published an interview with Donald Trump in which the president says that he is seriously considering pulling out of Nato, and suggests that the UK does not have a proper navy.

Peter Kyle, the business secretary, was telling people to carry on as normal this morning, in the light of concerns about fuel shortages. (See 9.24am.) In an analysis, Heather Stewart, the Guardian’s economics editor, suggests this might be the wrong message.

Here is an extract.

As the oil price surges once more, there are growing fears the government’s “don’t panic” messaging may be underplaying the scale of the challenges ahead and crowding out sensible advice on cutting consumption.

“It’s the wrong message,” says Andrew Sissons, the director of the climate programme at research foundation Nesta, referring to the government’s communications so far on the war’s impact. “The reality is that the global supply of oil and gas is going to be down by maybe 20%. It’s a supply crisis, which means everybody needs to consume less” …

Jill Rutter, of the Institute for Government thinktank, once a senior civil servant in the Treasury, says she would prefer a message that was more like “keep calm, but you can probably find some quite useful savings,” adding: “There are things you can do to manage down your consumption.”

Labour is understandably keen to avoid anything that might smack of the “nanny state”, let alone the dread word “rationing”. But the risk is that, as the conflict continues, “keep calm and carry on” sounds increasingly adrift from reality.

And here is the full article.

Iran war could drive UK food inflation to 9% this year, Food and Drink Federation warns

Food inflation could soar higher than 9% by the end of 2026 as war in the Middle East risks pushing up the cost of living for British households, a trade body has predicted. The Press Association reports:

The Food and Drink Federation (FDF), which represents 12,000 food and drink manufacturers, hiked its inflation forecast for the year in light of the conflict.

Economists for the trade body are now predicting that food inflation will reach at least 9% by the end of the year, up from the 3.2% that it had forecast in September last year.

The shift has been caused by the effective closure of the strait of Hormuz and disruption and damage to energy infrastructure in the Middle East.

The FDF said the situation is fast-changing, but its revision to the inflation forecast is based on the assumption that the strait of Hormuz opens to cargo traffic within the next two to three weeks and the majority of key facilities, such as oil, gas and fertiliser sites, return to normal within a year.

Oil prices have been falling, and the stock market rising, after Donald Trump signalled the Iran war would end within two to three weeks, Graeme Wearden reports. He has more on his business live blog.

Kyle defends government's decision to go ahead with king's state visit to US

In his interview Peter Kyle also defended the government’s decision to go ahead with the state visit to the US in April. (Although notionally the king is accepting an invitation from the president, the king acts on the advice of the government and ultimately it was Keir Starmer who took the final decision about the visit going ahead.)

Asked if he was worried about Trump insulting the PM in the presence of the king, Kyle told Sky News:

I think it is really important that the king, at this is very challenging time when it comes to rhetoric, is there showing that our two peoples have such affection for each other, despite all of the challenges in the relationship.

It is still a relationship where the deals that we signed have always endured.

Kyle also suggested that Trump’s insults should not always be taken at face value. Referring to the president’s increasingly aggressive comments about the UK and other Nato allies that have not fully supported his war in Iran, Kyle said:

We have a very unconventional president, he uses the bully pulpit on social media very effectively. He dominates a lot of debate. Let’s just see what actually happens …

He uses rhetoric to destabilise; he uses rhetoric in order to keep people on their toes. We are very much in touch with the American administration.

Business secretary plays down concerns about petrol shortages, saying people should 'right now carry on as normal'

Peter Kyle, the business secretary, has been doing an interview round this morning. He suggested that there was no need for people to worry now about fuel shortages related to the Iran war.

Speaking about petrol, he told Sky News:

The AA and the RAC have said that there are no challenges with supply at the moment, so they are encouraging people to continue as normal, and we as the government are backing up what they are saying and reassuring people that, right now, [they should] carry on as normal.

If that changes, we will be upfront and honest with the public.

Asked about jet fuel, he said that “right now there are no constraints”.

He went on:

Of course, if the strait of Hormuz [is] closed into the long term, there may well be supply constraints.

We are already looking at those scenarios, a whole range of different scenarios, and we are acting to make sure that we can have resilience in a different set of circumstances in the long term.

But it’s really key to reassure people that right now there are no constraints.

Kyle was also asked about the warning from NHS England chief executive Sir Jim Mackey that the health service could run out of some medical supplies. Jamie Grierson and Denis Campbell have that story here.

Kyle said Mackey was worried about “live medicines, one very specific medicine type in the NHS”.

[Mackey] has raised that concern, and we will look at that concern. But he is not talking about all medicine and all parts of the NHS.

Rachel Reeves signals that support package for household energy bills won’t kick in until autumn

Good morning. Keir Starmer is giving a press conference this morning where, according to No 10, he will discuss the Iran war, and how the government is supporting people at home. Now we are in April, the new financial year is starting, and the government is highlighting measures it has introduced that will help people with the cost of living. The Conservatives have an alternative list, and they are claiming this morning that “Keir Starmer and his chancellor have piled on extra costs leaving families almost £1,000 worse off this year”.

The chancellor, Rachel Reeves, has been doing her own media too. She is on the Jeremy Vine show later, but she has already given an interview to BBC Breakfast in which she gave a marginally clearer idea of what she is planning to do to help people with energy bills than she did when she made a statement to MPs last week.

We knew that she has already ruled out a universal support package, and that she wants to target help towards poorer families. Now she has signalled that she will not intervene until the autumn, when the central heating starts to go back on.

She told the BBC:

From July to September, gas usage, especially by families and pensioners, is the lowest of any months of the year because it is the summer months …

It will be really from the autumn onwards that people’s gas usage starts increasing. So at the moment we are working on a range of contingencies. And we are looking at more targeted measures. We are looking at ways we can support people based on their household income.

Referring to the universal support package introduced by the last Conservative government after the invastion of Ukraine, she said:

I want to learn the lessons of the past because when Russia invaded Ukraine, the richest, the best-off third of households got more than a third of the support. That makes no sense at all.

Here is the agenda for the day.

10am: Keir Starmer holds a press conference in Downing Street.

Morning: Kemi Badenoch is in Solihull to announce the Conservatives’ plan for a “national pothole patrol”.

10am: Reform UK is holding a press conference in Glasgow.

Lunchtime: Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, is interviewed by Jeremy Vine on Radio 2.

Afternoon: Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, is visiting south-west Hertfordshire.

Afternoon: Reeves is chairing a roundtable meeting with supermarket bosses.

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