Britain said it would revoke accreditation for a Russian diplomat in response to a similar move by Russia earlier this week against British diplomats.A government spokesperson said in a statement that Russia’s accusations made against the British diplomats were “entirely false” and “fabricated in order to justify their increasing harassment of UK diplomats”.A Foreign Office spokesperson said:During the past twelve months, Russia has pursued an increasingly aggressive and coordinated campaign of harassment against British diplomats, pumping out malicious and completely baseless accusations about their work.Russia’s expulsion this week of a British diplomat and diplomatic spouse is yet another escalation.The accusations made against these individuals are entirely false, fabricated in order to justify their increasing harassment of UK diplomats.

Moscow has been angered by Britain’s continued military support for Ukraine and by prime minister Keir Starmer’s recent statements about putting British boots on the ground in Ukraine as part of a potential peacekeeping force, Reuters reported.Britain said it had summoned the Russian ambassador in London on Wednesday and made clear that it would not stand for the “intimidation” of its diplomats and staff.The spokesperson added:It is clear that the Russian state is actively seeking to drive the British embassy in Moscow towards closure and has no regard for the dangerous escalatory impact of this.Summoning the Russian ambassador today, a senior Foreign Office official made clear that the UK will not stand for intimidation of British embassy staff and their families.Consequently, we are taking immediate reciprocal action, revoking accreditation for a Russian diplomat and a diplomatic spouse.

Keir Starmer has told MPs that he is not ruling out retaliatory tariffs against the US.(See 12.20pm.)Downing Street has rejected suggestions it is planning “chainsaw” cuts to central government.(See 1.

54pm.)The equalities watchdog has raised concerns about the Sentencing Council’s new guidelines which allegedly favour minority ethnic groups.(See 3.39pm.)Britain has said it will revoke accreditation for a Russian diplomat in response to a similar move by Russia earlier this week against British diplomats.

(See 4.38pm.)Scotland’s former first minister Nicola Sturgeon has announced she is standing down as an MSP.The UK’s financial watchdog has bowed to longstanding pressure and ditched a plan to frequently “name and shame” companies it is investigating.Angela Rayner, the deputy PM and housing secretary, has sent a letter to council leaders, mayors and local authority chief executives telling them to limit the number of consultations they carry out when considering planning applications.

In a move that follows government policy announced earlier this week, she says:I would urge you to read the written ministerial statement in full but in particular I wanted to draw your attention to the position it sets out with respect to local authorities.The government is clear that consultation of statutory consultees should be limited only to those instances where it is necessary to do so.Where there is relevant and up to date standing advice published with respect to the relevant category of development, then consultation is not required.Routine and blanket referrals to statutory consultees outside the statutory requirements should not take place, as this creates unnecessary administrative burdens for both local planning authorities and the statutory consultee.Decisions should not be delayed in order to secure advice from a statutory consultee beyond the 21 (or 18) day statutory deadlines unless there is insufficient information to make the decision or more detailed advice may enable an approval rather than refusal.

The National Planning Policy Framework sets out that significant weight should be placed on the need to support economic growth, and timely decision making is in line with this objective,Trinidad and Tobago has described Britain’s new visa requirement for tourists from the twin island state as a disproportionate and disappointing response to the issue of false asylum applications, Natricia Duncan and Kejan Haynes report,Britain said it would revoke accreditation for a Russian diplomat in response to a similar move by Russia earlier this week against British diplomats,A government spokesperson said in a statement that Russia’s accusations made against the British diplomats were “entirely false” and “fabricated in order to justify their increasing harassment of UK diplomats”,A Foreign Office spokesperson said:During the past twelve months, Russia has pursued an increasingly aggressive and coordinated campaign of harassment against British diplomats, pumping out malicious and completely baseless accusations about their work.

Russia’s expulsion this week of a British diplomat and diplomatic spouse is yet another escalation,The accusations made against these individuals are entirely false, fabricated in order to justify their increasing harassment of UK diplomats,Moscow has been angered by Britain’s continued military support for Ukraine and by prime minister Keir Starmer’s recent statements about putting British boots on the ground in Ukraine as part of a potential peacekeeping force, Reuters reported,Britain said it had summoned the Russian ambassador in London on Wednesday and made clear that it would not stand for the “intimidation” of its diplomats and staff,The spokesperson added:It is clear that the Russian state is actively seeking to drive the British embassy in Moscow towards closure and has no regard for the dangerous escalatory impact of this.

Summoning the Russian ambassador today, a senior Foreign Office official made clear that the UK will not stand for intimidation of British embassy staff and their families,Consequently, we are taking immediate reciprocal action, revoking accreditation for a Russian diplomat and a diplomatic spouse,Labour MP Nadia Whittome (Nottingham East) has said that she intends to rebel against Keir Starmer’s cuts to benefits,The leftwing MP told BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme earlier today that she would not be able to “look her mum in the eyes” if she supported the government’s proposed cuts,Whittome added that she was not planning to rebel “for the sake of this” and said that “you cannot incentivise people out of sickness”.

She said:It was wrong when David Cameron cut welfare, it would be wrong for us to do that now,It’s not disabled people who crashed the economy or who are responsible for rising rents or falling living standards,We must not scapegoat them for the failures and the political choices of [the] Conservative government,Addressing a private meeting of Labour MPs on Monday evening, Starmer said he would take tough decisions to cut the bill for working age health and disability benefits, which is expected to hit £70bn by 2030,The government has already vowed to cut £3bn over the next three years and is expected to announce billions more in savings from the personal independence payment (Pip), the main disability benefit.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is preparing to publish a green paper on sickness and disability benefit reform in the next few days ahead of the chancellor’s spring statement at the end of the month.Staff at the UK’s payment systems watchdog were informed that the organisation would be abolished just hours before the decision was made public, MPs have heard.David Geale, interim managing director at the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR), also said that no staff redundancies were expected as a result of the move, PA reported.The government announced late on Tuesday that the regulator will be disbanded and merged within the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) as part of an efficiency drive, saying it would make it easier for firms to deal with “one port of call”.Giving evidence to the treasury committee, Geale said: “We were told yesterday that the decision would be coming out”, but he said the regulator “had prepared for that eventuality”.

He added:We liaised with the Treasury through the day, we did see the proposed statement, we also saw a draft of the letter that has come to this committee and I was fortunately able to brief our staff just after close last night.John Swinney, Scotland’s first minister, has paid tribute to Nicola Sturgeon following her announcement that she will stand down as an MSP at the Scottish parliamentary election next year.Swinney told PA Media:I’m very sorry that Nicola Sturgeon has decided to stand down from the Scottish parliament.She’s made an extraordinary contribution to the work of the Scottish parliament, and particularly to the Scottish government, as our longest serving first minister …She’s got so many different policy achievements to be proud of in changing the lives of people in Scotland for the better.And I wish her well for the future.

But Rachael Hamilton, the deputy Scottish Conservative leader, said that while she wished Sturgeon well on a personal level, her party could “not forget the deep divisions in our country that Nicola Sturgeon created, fostered and encouraged”.She went on:By any objective analysis, her record as first minister is one of failure.Scottish education standards collapsed on her watch and the poverty-related attainment gap, which she promised to eradicate, widened.She presided over a drugs death emergency, a ferries scandal, a crisis in our NHS, crumbling roads – and all while raising taxes on hard-working Scots, which stifled economic growth.Her reckless gender self-ID policy betrayed women, her soft-touch approach to justice betrayed victims, and her shameful deletion of Covid WhatsApp messages denied bereaved families answers and highlighted the secrecy and cynicism that characterised her government.

Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, said:Nicola Sturgeon has been a leading figure in Scottish politics for 20 years, but I have known her in local politics in Glasgow for almost 30 years.This is a significant announcement that marks the end of an era in Scottish politics.Whilst I have many disagreements with her, I never doubted her passion for Glasgow and Scotland.I wish her well for the future.Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton said while Sturgeon’s impact on politics was “undeniable”, the departure of another senior figure from the SNP was “further proof of their decline”.

Lorna Slater, co-leader of the Scottish Greens, said that when she and her co-leader Patrick Harvie served in government with the SNP under Sturgeon, “it was the first time anywhere in the UK that Greens had been in a government role, and we are proud of the change we delivered.”Tom Ambrose is taking over the blog for a bit.I will be back later.The equalities watchdog has raised concerns about the Sentencing Council’s new guidelines which allegedly favour minority ethnic groups.In an interview with Times Radio, Lady Falkner, chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, said she had written to the council questioning whether the new advice complies with the public sector equality duty.

The government and the Conservartive have both claimed that the new rules amount to “two-tier” justice and Shabana Mahmood, the justice secretary, is meeting the council tomorrow to ask them to think again.But so far the council is refusing.Under the new guidelines, judges are advised that they should get pre-sentence reports before sentencing offenders in certain categories.These categories include young adults, women and people from an ethnic, cultural or faith minorities.Since a pre-sentence report often leads to a reduced sentence, the Tories have claimed this makes the system biased against people like white Christians.

But the Sentencing Council says minority ethnic offenders regularly get harsher punishments than equivalent white offenders and it argues that the guidance (which does not stop judges asking for a pre-sentence report for offenders not in the designated categories) is intended to make the overall system more fair, not less fair.Falkner, who was appointed EHRC chair when Boris Johnson was PM, said she sympathised with the Sentencing Council’s desire to preserve its independence.The EHRC is an independent body and we guard our independence very jealously indeed.We do not bow to government interference and I feel a lot of sympathy with the Sentencing Council in their current position.But she also suggested on this issue it had made a mistake.

I do wonder whether it might benefit from another look,I wrote yesterday to the Sentencing Council because we do have some concerns from an Equality Act perspective in terms of the public sector equality duty and we’ve offered to assist them in ascertaining whether there might be some discrimination by leaving out some groups and elevating others,So we’re waiting to see whether they would like to avail of our assistance, but we stand ready to assist,If having a pre-sentencing report is an advantage, then you run the risk of positive discrimination for those groups that are in the list and not for other groups,The correct constitutional position would be.

,,that a judge already has tools at their disposal to seek pre-sentencing reports and that they should do so based on an individual case on a case-by-case basis, rather than categorising certain groups,Justin Madders, the business minister, has described the employment rights bill as a “significant step forward” in modernising Britain’s industry and workers’ rights,Opening this afternoon’s report stage debate on the bill, Madders said the government was intending to introduce a number of changes to the originally drafted bill, covering trade union communications, access to workplaces and recognition processes.

As PA Media reports, the new Fair Work Agency will also get new powers, including the ability to fine employers who have underpaid their staff,Madders said: “As a result the Fair Work Agency may be able to help workers get money they are owed more quickly than if they had to go through an employment tribunal,”Another change will stop the requirement for unions to hold a vote every decade on whether to have a political fund, which can then be used to give money to political parties, including Labour,Madders said:Instead unions will provide reminders about members’ right to opt out every 10 years, ensuring transparency without imposing costly and time consuming ballots,There are many people eager to speak in the debate today which will ensure workplace rights are fit for a modern economy, empower working people and contribute to economic growth.

I urge members to support this bill and the amendments we are moving today, which will show that we are pro-business, pro-worker, pro-family, and pro-growth,Daniel Zeichner, the rural affairs minister, has told MPs that the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) scheme because it is “fully subscribed” and the government cannot afford to keep it open,In response to a Commons urgent question about the sudden closure of the scheme yesterday, Zeichner said:The fact is the high uptake of the scheme means it is now fully subscribed,Now, I’m afraid, as a Government, we inherited SFI with no spending cap despite a finite farming budget and that cannot continue,So we will continue to support farmers to transition to more sustainable farming models, including through the thousands of existing SFI agreements over the coming years and a revamped SFI offer.

But this is an opportunity to improve how we do that under a fair and just farming transition.Ziechner said a revised version of the SFI would open after the spending review, which is due to be announced in June.Victoria Atkins, the shadow environment secretary, accused the government of “Orwellian doublespeak” in how it made the announcement yesterday.She said:The statement issued by the government last night was a masterclass in Orwellian doublespeak.It says the SFI scheme has, I quote, ‘reached completion’.

Well, what criteria has the government used? Because it hasn’t set those criteria out before.The government’s own website stated that up to six weeks’ notice would be given for the withdrawal as SFI.Why was this disregarded last night?”Zeichner replied:It’s not a complicated thing to say that when the budget is spent a responsible government responds to that.The budget has been spent.In response to a later question from the Tim Farron, the Lib Dem spokesperson, Zeichner said that the fact that the budget for the SFI had been used up was something that “should be celebrated”.

Antonia Romeo, permanent secretary at the Ministry of Justice, has been appointed as the new Home Office permanent secretary, the Cabinet Office has announced.She will replace Sir Matthew Rycroft, who is leaving after a 35-year career in the civil service, including five years as the top official at the Home Office.Romeo, who was permanent secretary at the Department for International Trade before moving to justice, was one of the last four civil servants shortlisted to be cabinet secretary at the end of last year, but lost out to Sir Chris Wormald.Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, said:I am delighted to announce Antonia Romeo’s appointment as permanent secretary at the Home Office.Antonia has huge experience delivering transformation across a range of government departments, as well as a track record of delivery and strong systems leadership, both of which will be vital to lead the Home Office to deliver its mission on safer streets and border security