Starmer suffers record ratings slump as Musk’s conspiracy barrage continues: Live

The United Kingdom must “become to wind what Saudi Arabia is to crude oil”, a Labour MP has urged.

Henry Tufnell, MP for Mid and South Pembrokeshire, told the House of Commons: “In our United Kingdom, one of our biggest and most powerful natural resources is wind. To cut bills, deliver energy security and achieve net zero, we have to become to wind what Saudi Arabia is to crude oil.”

Speaking during a debate on new legislation to give the Crown Estate new borrowing powers, he added: “The population of South Wales and the South West will never forgive us if we don’t seize this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to redevelop their regional economies.”

Liberal Dem energy spokesperson Pippa Heylings had earlier told MPs: “While the new borrowing powers will enable investment in offshore wind, they will also facilitate property development across the 185,000 acres of the Crown Estate, so this Bill must do more to ensure that these developments do not ride roughshod over community concerns regarding planning, infrastructure and environmental standards, both on land and at sea.

“People must have a say in the decisions that affect them, and where infrastructure’s concerned they should also receive the benefits where appropriate.”

It comes amid fears of the capital’s shrinking relevance as a place to do business following Britain’s exit from the European Union.

The shrinkage of London as a global market has been steady. Twenty years ago, when banks, manufacturers, oil companies and pharmaceutical firms dominated lists of the biggest companies, UK-listed stocks accounted for 11 per cent of the global market. Now it is about 4 per cent.

The trend is as much about America’s growth as it is about London’s shrinkage as the US and its giant tech stocks have dominated world markets.

Howard Mustoe has more analysis here:

Plans to give the Crown Estate more borrowing powers will help it return more money to taxpayers and aid the transition to net zero, MPs have been told.

Opening a Commons debate ahead of a new Bill’s second reading, Treasury minister Darren Jones said it would change the outdated Crown Estate Act 1961 and bring it into place for the modern age.

He said: “The Crown Estate is a commercial business, independent from government, that operates for profit and competes in the marketplace for investment. Yet it is restricted in its ability to do so by legislation that has not been amended since 1961.

“With less ability to compete and to invest, it is less able to deliver returns for the public purse than it might otherwise be able to do.”

The new Bill will enable the Crown Estate to decarbonise and redevelop land it owns in the West End of London, Mr Jones said, adding that it will be able to seek finance from external partners, including in the City of London, and invest in more schemes with the aim of getting a financial return.

The Independent’s Political Editor David Maddox reports:

Elon Musk’s social media posts are “ridiculous” and the social media mogul “knows absolutely nothing” about the subject of grooming gangs, Jess Phillips has said.

Asked about the billionaire, who accused her of being a “rape genocide apologist” after she declined a request for a Whitehall-led inquiry into child sexual abuse in Oldham, Home Office minister Ms Phillips told ITV News: “It’s ridiculous isn’t it? The things that he’s saying are so ridiculous as to initially make me just go what?

“But then you wake up with the realisation that that’s millions of people that he has said that to and you feel immediately like this is going to turn my world upside down and I have to try and limit for how long that is the case.

“But you know, your immediate, my immediate thought was like just, it’s sort of like, what a joke. And then the realisation of what this is probably going to mean for you.”

Asked if it had turned her world upside down, Ms Phillips replied: “Yeah a little bit, a lot. Well, a lot actually it’s… it’s not great.”

She added: “The thing that annoys me the most about it is it takes up so much bandwidth of my time from a man who knows absolutely nothing about the subject he’s talking about, when the only thing I ever want to be doing is being able to use all of my brain power to focus on the hundreds of girls I have supported over the years who have been victims of grooming gangs and what needs to happen to make their lives better and to stop what is still happening today.”

Government savings from last year’s changes to the winter fuel payment are already less than planned, new analysis has revealed.

Announcing the cutting back of the cold weather benefit in July last year, Rachel Reeves said the measure would shave £1.4bn from the DWP bill this financial year. This was done by means-testing the payment to make only pensioners claiming pension credit eligible for it.

But research from Policy in Practice shows that the number of new pension credit claims meant the government had been forced to overspend on the change already, in the first week of January. And any more claims made before April will continue to eat into the savings further.

My colleague Albert Toth has more details:

Nigel Farage has said he hopes to “mend” his relationship with Elon Musk when he travels to the US for Donald Trump’s inauguration, after the two men had a bitter falling out this week.

He also attempted to step up the pressure on Sir Keir Starmer over grooming gangs, claiming his Reform party would be prepared to set up an unofficial “inquiry” within weeks if the government did not.

Our Whitehall editor Kate Devlin has more in this report:

Journalist Andrew Norfolk, who exposed the Rotherham grooming gang scandal in 2011, has warned that survivors are being “exploited” for political purposes.

He told the News Agents podcast: “As justice secretary, Michael Gove was instrumental in changing the rules on which judges could sit on these complex cases. As director of public prosecutions, Keir Starmer changed the rules to enable more prosecutions.

“I genuinely think those individuals got it eventually and did their best to affect change for the better. And in many cases, we still have a very far from perfect system, and of course abuse is still going on and every single child that falls victim to these men is one child far too many.

“But to suddenly have this explosion of interest and calls for inquiries, it just feels all wrong to me.”

Asked if he feels survivors are now being used for political purposes, he said: “100 per cent. But the far right – that’s been the case since day one.”

He added: “It’s being used for the very wrong reasons. These girls .. are being exploited all over again. And for now politicians to jump on the bandwagon again when they’ve been silent for so many years just strikes me as a bit shameful.”