Nigel Farage and Nick Candy say they met Musk at Mar-a-Lago to discuss doing ‘great things together’ – UK politics live

Scottish government ministers to be banned from using WhatsApp for official business

Severin Carrell

The Scottish government is to ban the use of WhatsApp and other messaging services for its official business, after scathing criticism of its use and mass message deletion by ministers and officials during the Covid crisis.

Nicola Sturgeon, the then first minister, and other senior officials including Jason Leitch, the then national clinical director, were accused of covering-up their mishandling of the crisis by routinely deleting WhatsApp messages.

UK ministers, including Boris Johnson, the then prime minister, also faced intense criticism for their wholesale use of WhatsApp and over Johnson’s missing messages – blamed on a change of handset and unspecified technical issues.

Kate Forbes, the deputy first minister, said the ban would take effect in spring 2025 in a bid to restore public confidence in transparency and accountability, and hinted she expected the UK Covid inquiry to soon issue highly critical findings about the past practice.

She told Jamie Greene, for the Scottish Conservatives, that access to non-official messaging services would be blocked on all government-issued mobile devices, in the same TikTok is currently barred from official phones.

Greene said Forbes was being “very naïve” if she thought ministers and officials would not use messaging apps on their personal phones to avoid scrutiny. Forbes said that would be a breach of the rules. She told MSPs:

This decision aligns secure, open, transparent governance, underpinned by sound records management policy and practice and the wellbeing of staff, with the values and vision of the Scottish government.

Before she spoke, Greene tabled a point of order because Forbes had failed to circulate an independent report on the controversy to MSPs so they could read it before her statement. Ironically, he said, Forbes was not being transparent on a statement about transparency.

A lawyer who was accused of improperly trying to influence MPs and peers on behalf of China has lost a legal challenge against MI5, who said nearly three years ago that she was trying to interfere in the British democratic processs, Dan Sabbagh reports.

The investigatory powers tribunal in this case came out only a day after a court lifted the ban on naming a businessman accused of “spying” for China when he befriended Prince Andrew.

Speaking to broadcasters in Estonia, asked if he was considering his decision to seek a closer relationship with China, Keir Starmer said:

We have to be alert to the risks and challenges of China and we are alert.

But we do have a strategy of engagement and that means where we co-operate on important issues like climate, we must do so.

But we must also challenge, and we do on important issues like human rights, with frank discussions, as I have had on a number of occasions, and of course compete when it comes to trade.

But it is better to engage whilst making sure we are clear about the threats and challenges that China poses.

Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, and Nick Candy, his new party treasurer, have met Elon Musk at Donald Trump’s Florida home, Mar-a-Lago, the party has announced.

It has not said much about what Farage and Candy discussed with the world’s richest man, but the news will revive speculation that Musk is planning a significant intervention that could help Reform UK’s electoral prospects.

Musk denied a recent report saying he was planning to give the party $100m. But doubtless Farage would be happy to accept a smaller sum, and, because Musk has business interests in Britain, UK laws intended to prevent foreign interference in domestic politics might not get in his way. Musk also owns X, and was accused of using it during the US presidential election to help Donald Trump.

In a statement after the meeting, Farage and Candy said:

We had a great meeting with Elon Musk for an hour yesterday. We learned a great deal about the Trump ground game and will have ongoing discussions on other areas.

We only have one more chance left to save the west and we can do great things together.

Our thanks also to President Trump for allowing us to use Mar-a-Lago for this historic meeting. The special relationship is alive and well.

Farage posted this picture from the meeting on social media.

The opposition parties that were not likely to be in government after the general election were notably more keen to say the ombudsman’s recommendations on Waspi women should be implemented in full, when they were first published, than the official opposition, or indeed the party in office at the time. And that is still the case today.

The Liberal Democrats said today was “a day of shame” for Labour. Steve Darling, the Lib Dem DWP spokesperson, said:

Today is a day of shame for the government.

The new government has turned its back on millions of pension-age women who were wronged through no fault of their own, ignoring the independent ombudsman’s recommendations, and that is frankly disgraceful.

The Conservative party left our economy in a shambles, but asking wronged pensioners to pay the price of their mismanagement is simply wrong.

For years, Liberal Democrats have pushed the government to fairly compensate Waspi women in line with the ombudsman’s recommendations.

And Kirsty Blackman, the SNP’s DWP spokesperson, said:

This Labour government announcement is a devastating betrayal of the millions of Waspi women who have spent years campaigning for justice.
Having been let down for so many years by successive Tory governments there was a sense that Labour might finally live up to their promise of ‘Change’, but instead Labour has confirmed that they will betray those women and pull yet another shady Westminster trick.

For years Labour politicians, including Anas Sarwar [the Scottish Labour leader], backed the Waspi campaign and promised to help deliver justice – now in just their first year in power, they turned their back on millions of affected women.

In the chamber it was put to Liz Kendall, the work and pensions secretary, that she too had backed the campaign by Waspi women for compensation and that Labour had promised compensation in the 2017 and 2019 election campaigns. Kendall pointed out that Labour lost both those elections.

Keir Starmer has said he accepts that Waspi women will be unhappy with the government’s decision not to pay them compensation.

In an interview with broadcasters in Estonia, asked if he understood the anger of those affected, Starmer replied:

I do understand their concerns. The ombudsman’s findings were clear in relation to maladministration, but also clear about the lack of direct financial injustice, as the ombudsman saw it. That’s why we’ve taken the decision that we’ve taken.

But I do understand, of course, the concern of the Waspi women.

But also I have to take into account whether it’s right at the moment to impose a further burden on the taxpayer, which is what it would be.

The last Conservative government did not give any indication that it was likely to accept the ombudsman’s recommendations if it won the election and, in her response to Liz Kendall, Helen Whately, the shadow work and pensions secretary, did not argue that the government should have taken an alternative decision.

But she did say this was now Labour’s decision, and they had to “own it”. In the Commons she told MPs:

No doubt campaigners will note the government’s apology for the decisions made between 2005 and 2007 which led to a 28-month delay in sending out letters which the ombudsman identified as maladministration but let’s be clear, the decision to provide no compensation is the government’s decision and they need to own it.

I’m not going to let them get away with saying that this is because of a fictional black hole in the public finances. The country’s financial position now is a result of their political choices.

They should not try to dodge responsibility by suggesting to waspi women that if times were different, they might have come to a different conclusion.

Waspi, the Women Against State Pension Inequality campaign, has condemned the government’s decision as “totally unjustified”. This is from its chair, Angela Madden.

The government has today made an unprecedented political choice to ignore the clear recommendations of an independent watchdog which ordered ministers urgently to compensate Waspi women nine months ago.

This is a bizarre and totally unjustified move which will leave everyone asking what the point of an ombudsman is if ministers can simply ignore their decisions. It feels like a decision that would make the likes of Boris Johnson and Donald Trump blush.

The idea that an ‘action plan’ to avoid such mistakes in future should be the result of a six-year ombudsman’s investigation is an insult both to the women and to the PHSO [Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman] process.

An overwhelming majority of MPs back Waspi’s calls for fair compensation and all options remain on the table. Parliament must now seek an alternative mechanism to force this issue on to the order paper so justice can be done.

Here are more quotes from Liz Kendall’s statement to MPs saying the government won’t accept the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman’s recommendation on compensation for Waspi women.

• Kendall said the ombudsman’s report did not criticise the decision in 1995 to increase the state pension age for women, or the coalition’s decision in 2011 to accelerate that increase. The report covered instead complaints about the Department for Work and Pensions not properly warning women about the increase, she said. Decisions made between 2005 and 2007 led to a 28-month delay in warning letters being sent to women born in the 1950s. The report said that did not result in the women suffering direct financial lost. But, Kendall told MPs, it was maladministration according to the report.

[The report] references research from 2004 showing 43% of women aged over 60 were aware of their state pension age. But it doesn’t sufficiently sufficiently recognise evidence from the same research that 73% of women aged 45 to 54 were aware that the state pension age was increasing – the very group that covers women born in the 1950s. Or research from 2006 that 90% of women aged 45 to 54 were aware that the state pension age was increasing.

Research given to the ombudsman shows only around a quarter of people who are sent unsolicited letters actually remember receiving them or reading them. So we cannot accept that in the great majority of cases sending a letter earlier would have affected whether women knew their state pension age was rising or would have increased their opportunities to make informed decisions.

These two facts – that most women knew the state pension age was increasing and that letters aren’t as significant as the Ombudsman says – as well as other reasons have informed our conclusion that there should be no scheme of financial compensation to 1950s-born women in response to the ombudsman’s report.

• And she said paying a flat rate of compensation, as recommended by the ombudsman, would not be would be “a fair or proportionate use of taxpayers money”.

First, we want to work with the ombudsman to develop a detailed action plan out of the report, so every and all lessons are learnt.

Second, we are committed to setting clear and sufficient notice of any changes in the state pension age so people can properly plan for their retirement.

And third, I have tasked officials to develop a strategy for effective, timely and modern communication on the state pension that uses the most up to date methods.

In March the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman published a report saying that the so-called Waspi women (Women Against State Pension Inequality) deserved compensation because they did not get adequate warning from the government about the fact that their state pension age was going up. It said people affected should be paid compensation, and that this could cost up to £10.5bn.

At the time the Conservatives, who were then in government, and Labour, who were expecting to replace them within months, refused to commit to accepting the recommendation. But the then government said it would take time to consider the report properly, and Labour also put off a definitive response.

In a statement to the Commons, Liz Kendall has now delivered the government’s formal response. And she has ruled out paying compensation.

She told MPs:

Given the vast majority of women knew the state pension age was increasing, the government does not believe paying a flat rate to all women at a cost of up to £10.5bn would be a fair or proportionate use of taxpayers money, not least when the previous government failed to set aside a single penny for any compensation scheme, and when they left us a £22bn in the public finances.

This has been an extremely difficult decision to take, but we believe it is the right course of action, and we are determined to learn all the lessons to ensure this type of maladministration never happens again.