Pay for NHS chiefs to be linked to performance with ‘no more rewards for failure’, Wes Streeting says – as it happened

Wes Streeting, the health secretary, has announced that pay arrangements for NHS trust chief executives will be changed so they are linked to performance.Commenting on the announcement, which is due to be confirmed in a speech later this week, Streeting said:I’m prepared to pay for the best and I will defend financial incentives to attract and keep talented people in the NHS. It’s a big organisation that should be competing with global businesses for the best talent.But there will be no more rewards for failure. We have got to get a grip on runaway spending and make sure every penny going to the NHS benefits patient – changes will not be popular but it’s a case of reform or die

Starmer joins Macron on Armistice Day in Paris to show European solidarity

Keir Starmer has joined Emmanuel Macron in Paris for the French Armistice Day service, in a pointed show of European solidarity days after Donald Trump’s re-election, with Ukraine and defence on the agenda for private talks between the two leaders.Starmer became the first UK leader to attend France’s national commemoration event since Winston Churchill in 1944.No 10 and the Élysée are said to be hoping the meeting will be a significant European moment for France and the UK, two leading Nato powers, amid fears on the continent about the future of the alliance after Trump’s re-election.The prime minister flew to Paris early on Monday to attend the event with French and British veterans. He also had a breakfast reception with representatives of the British defence community in France

Lib Dems plan to force vote on replacing Lords with elected upper chamber

The Liberal Democrats will attempt to hijack the government’s bill to ban Lords from inheriting their seats in parliament this week in an attempt to force a vote on an entirely elected upper chamber.The government’s hereditary peers bill, which is heading for its committee stage on Tuesday and is likely to clear the House of Commons the same day, will put an end to the tradition and ban the the current 92 lords who inherited their titles from sitting in the second chamber.MPs are expected to vote overwhelmingly in favour of the legislation but the Lib Dems want to amend the bill in favour of bringing in a totally elected second chamber.It would remove the power of patronage that the prime minister has to recommend new peers, call on the secretary of state to consult on an elected second chamber and commit to bringing forward a draft bill.The practice of appointing peers has led to associates, advisers and friends of prime ministers being sent to the House of Lords, in addition to crossbench peers chosen on merit by the House of Lords appointments commission

Government expected to help UK hospices hit by national insurance rise

The government is likely to offer a financial lifeline to the hospice sector amid fears end-of-life care providers are at risk of closure due to the double blow of the employers’ national insurance rise and higher wage bills, the Guardian understands.Officials have been looking at the options for providing more funding to hospices and other end-of-life care through the NHS partly to offset the impact of the national insurance rise, which the sector believes could cost it £30m a year.Hospices were already struggling with higher wage bills to match the 5.5% pay rise given to public medical workers, with the sector overall estimating an additional shortfall of about £60m.Whitehall sources said nothing was a done deal but it is understood three main options had been considered: offsetting all or part of the national insurance rise for non-NHS providers of end-of-life care; funding for staff pay rises that match NHS terms and conditions every year; or a direct funding pot for hospices rather than end-of-life care more broadly

Labour advisers want lessons learned from Harris defeat: voters set the agenda

There is a tough lesson that senior Labour advisers want some of their internal party critics to learn from the Democrats’ disastrous defeat. Optimism is not the answer they think it is.When Kamala Harris’s campaign had the most momentum, the core of it was joy. And although the final weeks were dominated by darker warnings of fascism under Donald Trump, Harris returned to that theme of optimism in one of her final messages to supporters, saying they had “brought back the joy”.Senior Labour insiders are privately scathing about those tactics

Donald Trump could be offered second state visit to UK ‘because of change in monarch’

Donald Trump could be offered a second state visit to the UK, it has emerged, because of the change of both the government and the monarch since he was last invited.However, government sources have denied claims from Nigel Farage that an invitation has already been extended by the House of Commons speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, for the US president-elect to address both Houses of Parliament.His predecessor, John Bercow, had said he would block any invitation to Trump to address parliament during his state visit in 2019.Trump was hosted at Buckingham Palace for a state visit by Queen Elizabeth in 2019, while Theresa May was prime minister.No other world leader has been hosted twice for an official state visit though the French president Jacques Chirac was hosted by the Queen both in 1996 and 2004, the latter called a “special visit” commemorating the centenary of the Entente Cordiale