Conservatives attack Labour over public sector pay settlements – UK politics live | Politics

Libby Brooks

Libby Brooks is the Guardian’s Scotland correspondent

Angela Rayner has denied that UK government decisions are forcing spending cuts in Scotland, as John Swinney challenged her over the means testing of winter fuel payments.

The deputy prime minister was in Edinburgh yesterday evening to take the salute at the Military Tattoo, but denied that budget cuts at Westminster were forcing tough decisions at Holyrood as she held talks with Swinney at Bute House, adding “We’re getting on and governing and working collaboratively.”

Swinney said that “tens of thousands” of pensioners in Scotland would be impacted after the UK government’s decision to only award the winter fuel payment to pensioners in receipt of certain benefits. Ministers at Holyrood said the loss of £160m cash as a result meant their replacement for the benefit – the pension age winter heating payment – would also have to be means tested.

After the talks, Swinney he had “expressed concern at the UK government’s decision to cut spending for the winter fuel payment for pensioners without any consultation with the Scottish government”.

This issue has been the first serious test of Labour’s promised “reset” of relations between Westminster and Holyrood, after years of conflict between the Tories and the SNP.

On Wednesday, Shona Robison, Scotland’s finance secretary, accused the UK government of preparing for austerity by stealth after she ordered civil servants to cut back on all non-essential spending.

Robison is preparing a statement at Holyrood to set out other spending cuts and freezes once the Treasury provides updated figures on how the chancellor’s revised budgets will affect Scotland’s allocation from the UK.

Overnight Conservative leadership candidate Priti Patel has defended the previous government’s record on migration, saying it was “lazy” to suggest net migration was too high.

Speaking on GB News, she said:

During the pandemic our borders were effectively closed. There was no travel. What about all those international students they came in after the pandemic? Are we saying that they should not have come into the country?

What did the government choose to do? I think this is the right thing to do. We absolutely made sure we gave the NHS the support that it needed through health and social care visas.

Are we going to say that was the wrong thing to do? I mean, knock on doors and ask your listeners, your viewers. Would they say we should not have had more doctors and nurses? I think they would not. A lot of these people are also high-rate taxpayers. So that context matters.

If you don’t want so many people to come in to work in our country, then there’s a wider discussion to be had there about having a labour market strategy

Retail sales return to growth across Great Britain

Graeme Wearden

Retail sales volumes rose by 0.5% in July, the Office for National Statistics reports this morning. That follows a fall of 0.9% in June when households cut back amid poor weather, and election uncertainty.

Department stores and sports equipment stores reported a boost in sales “following summer discounts and sporting events” last month, the ONS says.

Sales volumes were 1.4% higher compared with July 2023, when bad weather hit the high streets. But, volumes are still 0.8% lower than pre-pandemic levels.

The paymaster general has defended pay offers to public sector workers from the new Labour government, saying they are “settling disputes, the continuation of which is costing the economy hundreds of millions of pounds”.

Responding on the BBC Radio 4 programme to criticism that the chancellor could not square the party’s willingness to meet pay demands square with “the difficult economic inheritance the new government keep telling us about”, Nick Thomas-Symonds said:

It squares because we are settling disputes, the continuation of which is costing the economy hundreds of millions of pounds.

He said he hoped Aslef would accept a proposed pay deal for train drivers, saying:

The dispute isn’t settled, by the way. An offer has been made that is over the three year period from 2022 to 2025 that will now be put by Aslef to its membership. I sincerely hope that it is approved and that that is accepted,

We want to move forward with a better passenger experience on the railways and better value, frankly, for taxpayers, because we’ve seen the estimates the disruption since 2022 of up to £850m of lost revenue on our railways. We can’t continue like that.

The last government’s rail minister didn’t even meet the trade union leaders from January of 2023. We always said we would engage, and we have.

Attempting to highlight a different tone from the last administration, he continued:

I came on programmess like this when I was an opposition spokesperson, and often said that Labour in government would sit down, get around the table, do that hard work of finding in each individual area where the common ground was to find a solution. And that’s exactly what the government has done, whether its junior doctors [or] Aslef.

Allowing these disputes to continue is damaging the economy. That’s what the Conservatives did. This government takes a different approach. We engage. We work hard. We find that common ground. And doing that means the disruption doesn’t continue.

Conservative MPs have been continuing to attack the new Labour government over public sector pay settlements.

Chris Philp, shadow leader of the House of Commons, has claimed “it has taken Labour barely a month to lose control of state sector pay.”

He posted to social media to say “they will all now demand double digit rises. None of the increases come with commitments to reform or improve. All the public gets is a much bigger tax bill – or cut winter fuel allowances for 10 million pensioners”.

Kevin Hollinrake, the shadow business secretary, while conceding “of course it’s true that there is a ‘direct cost to the economy’ if workers go on strike” said “there’s a much bigger cost of capitulating to the unions. 40 years after Thatcher sorted them out, the unions are now back in charge and the country will pay the price”.

About 6.25 million people in the UK out of a workforce of about 33 million are members of a trade union.

Welcome to our rolling coverage of UK politics for Friday. Here are your headlines …

• Paymaster general Nick Thomas-Symonds has defended public sector pay settlements, saying the Labour government is ending long-running disputes and disruption that had been costing the country millions

• Conservative shadow minister Chris Philp accused the government of already losing control of state sector pay

• Angela Rayner has been told Labour’s new towns plan risks missing England housing targets

• The UK government has said contaminated blood scandal payouts are to start by the end of year

• Retail sales volumes rose by 0.5% in July, the Office for National Statistics reports this morning. That follows a fall of 0.9% in June when households cut back amid poor weather, and election uncertainty.

• The UK’s National Crime Agency says it is “not scared” of PPE Medpro’s lawyers

It is Martin Belam with you today. Do email me if you spot typos, errors or omissions – martin.belam@theguardian.com.