UK politics: government likely to have to ‘pay some Waspi compensation in election year’ – as it happened

Q: Are you supporting Esther Rantzen’s campaign for an assisted dying law?

Starmer says he is. He says as director of public prosecutions he produced guidelines to limit prosecutions for people who help someone end their life.

He says he supports an assisted dying law, but with very strong safeguards.

This would be a free vote matter, he says.

The next viewer asks about his water bill. It has gone up hugely, he says, but the water companies are not accountable. In effect this is taxation without representation.

Starmer says he wants much tighter regulation of the water sector. And people at the top should be personally liable for pollution.

Q: That won’t stop the pollution.

Starmer says making bosses personally accountable will make a difference.

Q: Do you want to see bosses in jail?

Starmer says he wants to see the water get cleaner. Making bosses accountable will make a difference.

Starmer is now taking questions from viewers.

The first is about small boats.

Starmer says this is a massive problem. But he says the Rwanda policy is an expensive gimmick. Labour would focus on tackling the gangs, dealing with claims more quickly, and getting more returns.

The viewer questions whether this will work. Vine says the government is already trying to smash the gangs.

Starmer does not accept that.

Those boats that are being used across are being made more or less to order. They’re being stored in warehouses in Europe, they’ve been brought to the coast in France and people get in them. It is not impossible to take down a business model like that.

Q: Peter Mandelson said recently you should lose a few pounds.

Starmer says he was a bit surprised, but he “couldn’t care less”. He says he will invite Mandelson to the five-a-side football games he plays.

He says he is getting advice from lots of people now.

Q: Do you take advice from the Blairites or the Brownites?

Both, says Starmer. But he says he is talking to Tony Blair “a lot”, particularly about what it was like being in opposition just before the election, and what it is like getting the opposition ready for government.

Q; Are you feeling sorry for the Princess of Wales at the moment?

Yes, says Starmer. We should leave her alone.

He says that is a human response, “as a dad and a human being”.

Q: Sunak is more popular than his party. But you are less popular than yours.

Starmer says, when he became Labour leader, people told him he would never turn things round in five years. It would take 10 years at best, they said. He did not accept that, he says.

Vine turns to the junior doctors’ strike.

Q: Will you pay them the 35% they want?

Starmer says the government must resolve this.

Q: 10% 20%?

Starmer says he cannot negotiate on air. But the government must resolve this.

Vine repeats his claim that Starmer has a record of ditching difficult policies. He mentions a ceasefire in Gaza, the two-child benefit cap, what happened with the Rochdale candidate, his stance on Margaret Thatcher.

Starmer does not accept Vine’s point. He starts with Gaza, and says that after the 7 October attack, telling Israel not to use force to get its hostages back was not something any serious politican was going to say.

Keir Starmer is being interviewed now on Jeremy Vine’s show on Channel 5.

Vine starts by asking how people can know what Starmer stands for when he keeps changing his policies. He asks specifically about the decision to ditch the £28bn annual green investment plan.

Starmer says economic circumstances changed. But he says the commitment to clean electricity by 2030 remains.

Good morning. Mel Stride, the work and pensions secretary, may face a huge problem landing on his desk today. The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman is due to publish a report recommending a response to the long-running campaign by Waspi women – women who lost out because they had not had sufficient warning about the pension age for women going up from 60. Compensation could cost billions.

It is not clear how the government will respond, but in an interview with the Daily Telegraph published this morning Stride opened himself up to criticism on another front, by claiming that concern for people’s mental health may have gone “too far”. He told the paper:

While I’m grateful for today’s much more open approach to mental health, there is a danger that this has gone too far.

There is a real risk now that we are labelling the normal ups and downs of human life as medical conditions which then actually serve to hold people back and, ultimately, drive up the benefit bill …

If they go to the doctor and say ‘I’m feeling rather down and bluesy’, the doctor will give them on average about seven minutes and then, on 94% of occasions, they will be signed off as not fit to carry out any work whatsoever.

Stride also told the paper that he feared some people were now “convincing themselves they have some kind of serious mental health condition as opposed to the normal anxieties of life”.

He admitted that this was a sensitive topic. But he said “an honest, grown-up debate” was needed and he added:

It is too important for people and their futures, too important for the way that welfare works and too important for the economy to just ignore.

Stride was making the comment to defend changes to the work capabality assessment, a process used to decide when people qualify for sickness benefits because they are too ill to work. The government is making the rules stricter.

Here is the agenda for the day.

9.15am: Keir Starmer is inteviewed by Jeremy Vine on Channel 5.

9.30am: The Department for Work and Pensisons publishes annual poverty figures.

After 10.30am: Penny Mordaunt, leader of the Commons, gives a statement to MPs on forthcoming Commons business.

11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.

Afternoon: James Cleverly, the home secretary, is on a visit with Sussex police.

And at some point today the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman is publishing a long-awaited report into the Waspi women – women who lost out because they did not get sufficient warning about the state pension age for women going up. It is a report to parliament, and so timing of its publication is a matter for the Commons.

If you want to contact me, do use the “send us a message” feature. You’ll see it just below the byline – on the left of the screen, if you are reading on a laptop or a desktop. This is for people who want to message me directly. I find it very useful when people message to point out errors (even typos – no mistake is too small to correct). Often I find your questions very interesting, too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either in the comments below the line; privately (if you leave an email address and that seems more appropriate); or in the main blog, if I think it is a topic of wide interest.