Starmer confirms UK talking to other countries about getting them to host ‘return hubs’ for refused asylum seekers
Q: [From Christopher Hope from GB News] To Starmer – Which countries are you talking to about hosting ‘return hubs’ about migrants from the UK whose applications for asylum have failed?
Starmer says he is interested in using return hubs. He says he is in talks with other countries about this. But he would like to add them to the list of measures being used to tackle this problem. But he says he is not in a position to give more information about this plan yet.
Key events
At the last election four independent MPs – Shockat Adam, Ayoub Khan, Adnan Hussain and Iqbal Mohamed – were elected because they campaigned on a pro-Gaza platorm. Along with Jeremy Corbyn – also pro-Gaza but who may have been re-elected anyway, without the war, because of his status as a former Labour leader – they formed the Independent Alliance. On Bluesky, Corbyn has posted a joint statement from them marking Nakba Day – commemorating the Nakba (“catastrophe”), the displacement of an estimated 750,000 Palestinians forced to leave their homes when the state of Israel was formed.
Lib Dems say they will force vote in Lords to try to block law allowing foreign states to part-own UK newspapers
As Mark Sweney reports, the government has decided to allow foreign states to own stakes of up to 15% in British newspapers. This is primarily to end the deadlock over the sale of the Daily Telegraph, allowing a consortium backed by the United Arab Emirates to take over.
The Liberal Democrats have announced that they are going to try to block this in the House of Lords by using a fatal motion, a rarely-used procedure that can be used to block secondary legislation. They believe that, with Tory support, they could pass the fatal motion.
Max Wilkinson, the Liberal Democrat culture spokesperson in the Commons, said:
Our free press is the cornerstone of British democracy – it can never be for sale to foreign powers.
In 2024, it seemed there was cross-party consensus on this. But just as we’ve seen with their approach to copyright protections and AI, Labour are demonstrating they are willing to put at risk one of this nation’s great assets.
This move insults all of those working to maintain the centuries-old British value of press freedom. It must be reversed.
Tories accuse Starmer of snubbing Middlesex by not flying its flag from No 10 – implying PM soft on Napoleon
At PMQs yesterday Keir Starmer accused the Conservative party of “sliding into oblivion”. In an effort to prove him wrong, CCHQ has issued a press notice criticising Keir Starmer for refusing to fly the flag of Middlesex above Downing Street.
And it is not just a short press release. It runs to 1,700 words (including the notes), covering, among other things, Napoleon, bisexual flags, and the record of the last Conservative government in championing England’s traditional counties.
Readers may not be familiar with the Middlesex flag – in part because Middlesex does not even exist anymore as a unit of government. But the Tories say tomorrow is Middlesex Day, celebrating “the victory of the Middlesex Regiment (‘the Die Hards’), holding back the forces of Napoleon Bonaparte in the Battle of Albuhera during the Peninsula Wars”, and that when the Tories were in power they flew the Middlesex flag from Downing Street on 16 May to mark the occasion.
By tabling a Commons written question, Richard Holden, a shadow Cabinet Office minister, discovered that No 10 will not be doing the same again this year. In a statement denouncing the government for this, he said:
As the Labour government prepares to give in to betray Brexit and make our country an EU law-taker, it speaks volumes that they refuse to fly the historic flag that marks victory over the forces of Napoleon. Keir Starmer would rather hoist the white flag of surrender.
The Tories also say Labour’s “refusal to fly county flags contrasts with the decision in September by David Lammy’s Foreign Office to hoist the bisexual flag from Whitehall, adjacent to Downing Street”.
Asked about the story, the PM’s spokesperson pointed out that Starmer celebrated St George’s Day.
NHS England says ‘sharp rise in referrals’ behind waiting list increase – because treatment rate increasing
NHS England has said that a “particularly sharp rise in referrals” explains why hospital waiting lists rose slightly in March. (See 10.03am.)
In its own news release on the figures, NHS England said they showed “the NHS delivered over 100,000 more treatments in March compared to the same month last year”.
Prof Sir Stephen Powis, NHS England’s national medical director, said:
The scale of demand that our frontline NHS teams are managing is enormous – today’s figures show that each month, they are having to not only deal with an historic backlog, but they are also working to keep up with the hundreds of thousands of new patients that need our care.
In March, we saw a particularly sharp rise in referrals – yet staff still managed to deliver more for patients with 100,000 more treatments delivered and thousands more getting a timely diagnosis for cancer.
Commenting on the figures, Edward Argar, the shadow health secretary, said:
Patients will be disappointed that waiting lists have begun to rise again in this latest data, at just the same time Wes Streeting has announced plans for big bonuses for NHS bosses.
And the Health Foundation charity put out a statement about the figures saying:
These latest statistics are a reminder that patients and NHS staff continue to bear the consequences of the strain on NHS services. A quarter of patients waited more than 4 hours to be treated in A&E in April, with over 44,000 waiting more than 12 hours to be admitted to a bed. And while the NHS waiting list had seen a slow and gradual decline over the past 6 months, it increased slightly to 7.42m in March.
Behind these figures are more than 13,000 patients who are fit to be discharged but still in hospital. This underlines the urgent need to improve the flow of patients out of hospital – including by investing in social care. New Health Foundation analysis out today estimates an additional £3.4bn a year would be needed by 2028/29, just to avoid adult social care services deteriorating further.
Tories claim Albanian PM’s refusal to host ‘return hub’ for refused asylum seekers from UK made Starmer’s trip pointless
Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, has claimed that Keir Starmer’s trip to Tirana was pointless because the Albanian PM ruled out hosting a “return hub” for the UK. (See 11.57am.)
And he also claimed that Starmer was trying to take credit for a reduction in small boat arrivals achieved by the Conservatives.
In a statement he said:
This trip is an embarrassment. Starmer jetted off and now the Albanian prime minister has made clear that there will be no UK return hubs in Albania. So, what was the point of this entire visit?
Under the Conservatives, we already struck a real returns deal and a law enforcement deal with Albania – and they worked. Small boat arrivals from Albania dropped by over 90%. Now Labour are dishonestly insinuating it’s down to them.
Keir Starmer has confirmed that he intends to fight the next election as Labour leader.
He made this clear after giving an answer during an interview in Albania that implied that this was not a certainty. Asked by GB News if he would still be Labour leader at the time of the next election, he replied:
You’re getting way ahead of me. I’m absolutely clear, I’m absolutely clear that my task is to rebuild our country, the security that we need, we’re getting on with that.
After this was interpreted as evidence that Starmer was not sure (Starmer “sparked confusion”, according to the GB News story), Starmer later said:
Of course I am going to stand at the next election.
I’ve always said this is a decade of national renewal that I intend to lead.
They were part of what we were arguing for at the last election and of course we’ve got a lot more work to do but we’re making huge progress.
The Green party peer Jenny Jones has said that, while her party would abolish the House of Lords, even in its current form “it actually weirdly works”.
She was speaking in a wide-ranging interview with John McFall, the Lord Speaker, for his Lord Speaker’s Corner podcast.
Jones said:
Clearly, the Green Party would abolish the House of Lords. We would make it all elected. We would sweep away some of these really stupid, archaic practices that we have here. But at the same time, while we’ve got this system, it actually weirdly works.
Most people, when I talk to them, they’ve got no idea what we do here and they don’t understand it. But I do get more and more emails from people saying, “Over the past few years, I always used to think that House of Lords was a waste of time, but now I say thank God because we stopped the last government from doing some awful things.
In the interview Jones said she thought the Lords might be more influential than people give it credit for. Quoting the historian Lord Hennessy, who has described the Lords as “the best thinktank in the country”, she said she thought he had a point.
For example, I remember a report by the Health Committee, Lord Patel chairing it. It was presented to the government, nothing happened for a few years. They then came out with a white paper and almost everything that was in Lord Patel’s paper was adopted as a white paper by the government. Maybe it goes with age and experience. We give that information, we give it in a gentle way, but we just hope it gets taken up at some time.
Although people are appointed to the Lords, Jones also pointed that she became a peer after the Green party held an election for who should go to the Lords if they were offered a seat, and she came first.
There is a transcript of the interview here. And you can watch it here.
Royal Marine general Gwyn Jenkins appointed head of Royal Navy
General Sir Gwyn Jenkins has been named as the new head of the Royal Navy, the Ministry of Defence said, following the earlier than expected departure of his predecessor. PA Media reports:
Gwyn replaces Admiral Sir Benjamin Key as first sea lord and chief of the naval staff. He is the first Royal Marine to be appointed to the role
The general had been in line to become the UK’s national security adviser until Keir Starmer cancelled the appointment by his predecessor as prime minister, Rishi Sunak
Key, Gwyn’s predecessor, stood down earlier than expected, amid an investigation which is understood to be related to a relationship with a female subordinate.
Badenoch claims Starmer’s plan for ‘return hubs’ will be ‘weaker than Rwanda plan and won’t work’
The Mail Online’s story about Keir Starmer’s return hub comments in Albania today quotes a Whitehall official as describing the plan as “Rwanda-lite”.
In a post on social media commenting on a link to the Mail story, Kemi Badenoch said:
Starmer is making an effort, but this will NOT stop the boats.
People will still try their luck knowing they can stay in Britain if granted asylum so it won’t get rid of asylum hotels in the UK.
We left Labour a real deterrent. This is weaker than the Rwanda plan and won’t work.
Under the proposed Rwanda plan, which was held up by legal challenges and never implemented, the Tory government wanted to ban anyone arriving in the UK illegally from claiming asylum – regardless of whether or not they had a valid claim. In theory, they could all have been deported to Rwanda and banned from returning.
Starmer is not proposing this. Instead, he would look at a scheme that would involve removing people to a third country after their asylum application was refused.
Here are some more pictures from Keir Starmer’s meeting with the Albanian PM Edi Rama this morning.
‘Misleading’ to claim psychiatrists do not back assisted dying bill, says Kim Leadbeater
Kim Leadbeater has hit back at criticism from the Royal College of Psychiatrists over the assisted dying bill and said there had been no drop-off in support for it among MPs before a vote tomorrow, Eleni Courea reports.
As well as being exceptionally tall, Edi Rama is unusual among prime ministers in that he is a bona fide artist. He was an art professor, and his work has been exhibited in galleries.
Keir Starmer got the chance to inspect the collection of felt-tip pens he keeps in his office when they met this morning.
MPs express concerns that domestic abuse victims to be put at risk from plans to limit use of prison recall
The government has given domestic abusers an opportunity to “give another twist to the knife” for victims through planned changes to prison recall, ministers have been warned. In its report on the urgent question on “the public safety implications” of the government’s plans to limit the use of prison recall, PA Media reports:
Conservative former minister Desmond Swayne was one of a number of MPs questioning justice minister Nic Dakin on how the changes would impact victims of domestic abuse.
Under emergency measures announced by the justice secretary, some criminals serving sentences between one and four years will be returned to custody only for a fixed 28-day period.
Offenders are recalled to prison if they commit another offence or breach licence conditions, such as by missing probation appointments, when they are released early but remain on licence.
Swayne said: “Given the nature of domestic abusers, many will welcome the opportunity to give another twist to the knife at a mere cost of 28 days. Hasn’t he just presented them with a practical opportunity?”
Liberal Democrat MP Ben Maguire said the government has “failed to step up and tackle the sheer scale of the problem” in criminal justice capacity.
Speaking from the front bench he said: “Victims and survivors are worried about what this will now mean for them. If there was a specific offence of domestic abuse, those dangerous offenders could have been excluded from early release, but the Government has taken no action at all since the Liberal Democrats raised the solution with them last autumn. So will the minister finally commit to giving victims and survivors the protections they deserve by creating new domestic abuse aggravated offences?”
Dakin said getting things right for victims is “something we take very, very seriously and needs to be done very, very properly”.
Labour MP Laurence Turner asked to ensure that “lessons have been learned” from cases of people being murdered by prisoners on remand.
He said: “In separate cases two families in my constituency lost loved ones. They were murdered by offenders who were out on remand and who never should have been.”
Dakin said he would meet with him to take the matter further.
No 10 says return hubs could save taxpayers money by stopping refused asylum seekers using stalling tactics to stay in UK
At the Downing Street lobby briefing No 10 suggested return hubs could stop refused asylum seekers from starting a family in the UK in an attempt to use human rights laws to prevent them being sent back.
Asked about the proposal, which Keir Starmer confirmed today was something being actively discussed with other countries (see 12.41pm), the PM’s spokesperson said:
This will basically apply to people who have exhausted all legal routes to remain in the UK but are attempting to stall using various tactics, whether it’s losing their paperwork or using other tactics to frustrate their removal.
It will ensure that they don’t have the chance to make their removal harder by using tactics such as starting a family, etc, as we have seen from cases in the past.
That obviously will reduce the cost to the taxpayer.
Starmer says ‘return hubs’ for refused asylum seekers could be ‘important innovation’
Here is the full version of the answer that Keir Starmer gave to GB News during the press conference when asked if he was considering setting up “return hubs” in other countries for migrants whose applications for asylum in the UK are refused. (See 12.02pm.) Starmer said:
Yes, we are in talks with a number of countries about return hubs.
I view them as a really important innovation, and that’s consistent with the work that we’ve done in relation to UK-Albania reduction in numbers, the work we’ve done on law enforcement arrangements with other countries, the return agreements that we’ve put in place, the record number of returns.
What I’d like to do is add return hubs to that.
We are in those talks and therefore, at the appropriate time, I’ll be able to give you further details in relation to it.
Rama says relations with UK in ‘new era’, after reporter asks Starmer to apologise for Tory comments about Albanians
Q: Will you apologise for the way Albanians have been treated by the UK in the past? (That seems to be a reference to what Suella Braverman said about Albanians when she was home secretary.)
Starmer says the fact that he is the first UK prime minister to have an official visit to Albania shows the respect he has for the country. He says he will not comment on the previous government.
Rama says it was not any British PM who offended Albanians. There were “a few other individuals that did it”, he says. But he says they have now been “taken out” by the British people at the election.
He says the two countries are now in a “new era” as they are building a new partnership.
And that’s the end of the press conference.
UPDATE: Starmer said:
Look, I think the fact that I’m the first British Prime Minister to be here in Albania, having a bilateral meeting, should be seen as a statement of intent as to the regard that I hold Albania and this prime minister [Edi Rama].
I won’t comment on previous prime ministers in Britain, but my approach is not megaphone diplomacy. It is to do the hard yards of actually dealing with the problems that we have to address.
And Rama said:
Cursing the Albanians was not a good idea, because the curse went back and they are now out of the parliament. So, it is enough. We don’t need more than that.
