Labour MP Joani Reid’s husband arrested on suspicion of spying for China
One of the three men arrested on suspicion of spying for China is David Taylor, the husband of a Labour MP.
Joani Reid, MP for East Kilbride and Strathaven, told Sky News in a statement:
I have never seen anything to make me suspect my husband has broken any law.
I am not part of my husband’s business activities, and neither I nor my children are part of this investigation, and we should not be treated by media organisations as though we are.
Above all I expect media organisations to respect my children’s privacy.
Key events
Closing summary
That’s all from me, Tom Ambrose, and indeed the UK politics live blog for today. Thanks for following along.
Here is a summary of the day’s news:
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Keir Starmer has told MPs that “hanging on to President Trump’s latest words is not the special relationship” after criticism of his stance on the Iran conflict. A day after Donald Trump dismissed Starmer as “not Winston Churchill”, angry that the US was denied use of British bases for initial strikes, the prime minister’s handling of the UK response to the conflict came under attack by Kemi Badenoch, the opposition leader, at prime minister’s questions.
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Starmer said it was “obviously an extremely serious situation” and the “whole country is worried about the potential for escalation”. He added: “They’re worried about the impact on their lives, particularly when they see what’s happening with energy, the family and friends of those who are caught in the region will be worried sick and, of course, we’ve got civilians and military personnel at risk in the region.”
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Starmer also told MPs: “What I was not prepared to do on Saturday was for the UK to join a war, unless I was satisfied there was a lawful basis and a viable thought-through plan.”
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Badenoch said it had been left to the US to destroy Iranian bases that were believed to have launched drones at an RAF base in Cyprus, telling the Commons: “Our bases have already been attacked. Iran is trying to kill our servicemen and women. He is catching arrows rather than stopping the archer.”
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Badenoch also said “this crisis goes beyond defence spending” and that Labour was “pathetic” to spend on welfare instead of defence. “They’re not just pathetic, they are also weak,” she said. “This war is interrupting the supply of oil and gas. That is driving up the cost of petrol and making it more expensive to heat our homes.”
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Britain cannot become embroiled in a war “without a clear end point”, a former senior Nato commander has said, as he defended Keir Starmer after Donald Trump’s jibes that he was “not Winston Churchill”. Trump was “another American president who had launched a war of choice,” said Gen Sir Richard Shirreff, as a minister insisted that the UK prime minister had acted “with a cool head” by not allowing British bases to be used for initial strikes.
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Britain has not ruled out participating in future strikes against Iranian ballistic missile launch sites, officials have indicated. US heavy bombers are expected to reach UK bases at Diego Garcia in the Chagos Islands and Fairford in Gloucestershire in the next few days, from where they are expected to attack Iran’s underground “missile cities”.
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One of the three men arrested on suspicion of spying for China is David Taylor, the husband of a Labour MP. Joani Reid, MP for East Kilbride and Strathaven, told Sky News in a statement: “I have never seen anything to make me suspect my husband has broken any law. I am not part of my husband’s business activities, and neither I nor my children are part of this investigation, and we should not be treated by media organisations as though we are.”
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Andy Burnham has launched a withering attack on UK central government, claiming that Whitehall no longer appeared to want to “share growth” with regions such as the north of England. The mayor of Greater Manchester, regarded as a rival to Keir Starmer for the Labour leadership, also attacked what he described as the “bankruptcy” of his party’s campaigning approach, which he said prevented it from connecting with other voters and parties such the Greens.
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A new ban on students coming to the UK from four countries where there is war and human rights abuses will drive more people use small boats, campaigners have warned. The home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, announced a bar on student visas from Sudan, Afghanistan, Myanmar and Cameroon on Tuesday evening. It will come into force on 26 March.
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The Middle East crisis could trigger an energy price shock that more than wipes out the £300 rise in living standards a typical working-age household could otherwise expect this year, a leading thinktank has warned. The Resolution Foundation said a “decent” one-off increase in average living standards in 2026 and a bumper rise for lower-income households could be reversed by rising oil and gas prices as the Iran conflict disrupts supplies.
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Almost 60% of Welsh voters are unaware of how the new system will work in May’s Senedd elections and there is confusion over devolution powers, a report has found. Polling research released on Wednesday by Cardiff University and YouGov suggested that 26 years since devolution began, many voters remain unsure about which policy decisions sit with Cardiff Bay, and which with Westminster.
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A Scottish Labour MSP has denounced a decision to block a landmark bill to criminalise environmental destruction after a Holyrood committee decided there was not enough time to handle it before the May election. Monican Lennon said she was “profoundly disappointed” after Scottish National party and Conservative MSPs on Holyrood’s net zero committee voted to stop her Ecocide (Scotland) bill from going to a vote.
Diane Taylor
A new ban on students coming to the UK from four countries where there is war and human rights abuses will drive more people use small boats, campaigners have warned.
The home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, announced a bar on student visas from Sudan, Afghanistan, Myanmar and Cameroon on Tuesday evening. It will come into force on 26 March.
The home secretary said it is an “abuse” for people from these countries to claim asylum “in country” after finishing their studies. Home Office sources say that study routes should not be the mechanism for claiming asylum. But critics say that very few safe and legal alternatives exist.
Sudan is currently being torn apart by war and Afghanistan is accepted to be a repressive regime where women and girls are routinely persecuted and denied their rights and any opponents of the ruling Taliban regime are punished. According to Amnesty International’s most recent country reports, Myanmar has seen a surge in atrocities by the ruling junta in the five years since the military coup took place and arbitrary detentions and crackdowns on human rights in Cameroon have been documented.
According to the Home Office’s own data, the number of people from each of these countries who are granted student visas and go on to make asylum claims are only in the hundreds, in some cases fewer than the number who cross the Channel in small boats on a moderately busy day. Just 13% of total asylum claims last year came from people who had previously come to UK on a study visa.
Kemi Badenoch said the government must “treat China as the threat we all know it is”, after the arrest of three men on suspicion of spying for Beijing.
In a video posted on X, the Tory leader said: “The spouse of a sitting Labour MP has reportedly been arrested for spying alongside the partner of a former Labour MP. These men were arrested under the National Security Act, suspected of assisting a foreign intelligence directly targeting our democracy.
“China is targeting Britain, targeting our MPs. Enough.
“Keir Starmer chose to go to Beijing and boasted about opening a direct channel to president Xi without getting anything in return. That was a mistake.
“His government has approved China’s mega-embassy in London. Worse than that, he’s making us even more reliant on Chinese goods for our energy security.
“The government needs to stop being naive, grow a backbone and treat China as the threat we all know it is.”
Ben Quinn
Andy Burnham has launched a withering attack on UK central government, claiming that Whitehall no longer appeared to want to “share growth” with regions such as the north of England.
The mayor of Greater Manchester, regarded as a rival to Keir Starmer for the Labour leadership, also attacked what he described as the “bankruptcy” of his party’s campaigning approach, which he said prevented it from connecting with other voters and parties such the Greens.
Burnham was speaking in London a week on from Labour’s loss of its once safe seat of Gorton and Denton to the Greens after Starmer and his allies blocked the mayor from standing to be the party’s candidate. Labour’s deputy leader and a Burnham ally, Lucy Powell, has said he would have won.
While repeatedly lambasting “Westminster and Whitehall culture,” Burnham avoided commenting on that controversy.
But he prompted laughter from an audience at the British museum when he said he wanted to turn Manchester into Britain’s “leading green city” before adding “Some might say it took a step that way recently.”
Burnham used a speech organised bv the Centre for Cities think-tank to lay out for the first time in detail his vision of what he described as “Manchesterism” – a way of governing which has become associated with the former MP’s apparent pitch for the Labour leadership but which he identified as “the opposite of Westminsterism.”
However, he also projected a frustration with Whitehall, railing against what he said was “the resistance of the system to free us up more.”
“After 10 years of devolution they are still pushing us away as if they know all the answers and still they hold on and refuse to devolve,” he told the audience.
“I am getting to the point where I refuse to spend more of my time making the case. It just makes you think they don’t actually want growth everywhere. They just want to hold on to things down here. We need Whitehall reform but we also need Westminster reform.”
MSP condemns blocking of Ecocide vote
Severin Carrell
A Scottish Labour MSP has denounced a decision to block a landmark bill to criminalise environmental destruction after a Holyrood committee decided there was not enough time to handle it before the May election.
Monican Lennon said she was “profoundly disappointed” after Scottish National party and Conservative MSPs on Holyrood’s net zero committee voted to stop her Ecocide (Scotland) bill from going to a vote.
The bill, the first of its kind in the UK, would have made it a criminal offence for people to cause reckless or deliberate damage to the environment, putting it on a similar legal footing to murder. Similar legislation is in force across the EU and in other countries.
The bill won 90 votes from across the parliament and backing from the Scottish government when it was first tabled last year, but the five SNP and Tory MSPs on the net zero committee said two weeks ago they did not have enough time to scrutinise the bill in sufficient detail, and their decision was accepted yesterday by Holyrood’s presiding officer, Alison Johnston, a former Scottish Green MSP.
Holyrood rises on 28 March for the Scottish parliament election on 7 May. The two Scottish Labour and Scottish Green MSPs on the committee voted to push the bill through to a vote.
Lennon said time constraints were not preventing other bills being pushed through at a late stage, and this committee actually had a “light agenda” at its next meeting.
She urged parties to commit to resuscitating the bill after the election:
“Scotland cannot afford more delays. The evidence heard by the committee from legal experts, youth activists, and environmentalists was clear: Scotland needs a new offence to deter the most serious crimes against nature. By effectively shelving this bill now, the committee has ignored the will of the Parliament and the urgency of the nature, climate, and pollution crises.”
Keir Starmer has told MPs that the protection of UK nationals in the Middle East was the government’s “number one priority”.
Speaking during PMQs, he also said that “hanging on to Trump’s latest words is not the special relationship” after criticism of his stance on the conflict.
Labour MP Joani Reid’s husband arrested on suspicion of spying for China
One of the three men arrested on suspicion of spying for China is David Taylor, the husband of a Labour MP.
Joani Reid, MP for East Kilbride and Strathaven, told Sky News in a statement:
I have never seen anything to make me suspect my husband has broken any law.
I am not part of my husband’s business activities, and neither I nor my children are part of this investigation, and we should not be treated by media organisations as though we are.
Above all I expect media organisations to respect my children’s privacy.
Andy Burnham has said the Gorton and Denton by-election “revealed the full depth of the chasm between people and Westminster politics”.
The Labour mayor of Greater Manchester suggested during a Centre for Cities think tank event in central London that the by-election, won by the Greens, demonstrated that Westminster was not focused on the priorities of ordinary people.
At the start of the event, Burnham said:
From my point of view, I’m definitely not here to talk about my career plans, other than to say I wrote a book as you might know, with the mayor of the Liverpool City region Steve Rotheram about leaving Westminster and establishing devolution across England.
It’s called ‘Head North’. All I can say today is that the sequel ‘Head South’ is currently on hold.
He added:
What I want to say today is that the time has most definitely come for a serious conversation about our political system and its pervading culture, particularly so in the aftermath of the Gorton and Denton by-election.
It revealed the full depth of the chasm between people and Westminster politics. I don’t think anybody can seriously dispute that statement.
Philip Rycroft, who is leading a review into foreign financial interference in the UK’s political and electoral systems, will have “time and space for him to reflect on any events that have taken place recently”, Dan Jarvis said.
Reform UK deputy leader Richard Tice asked whether the Rycroft review “can take account” of recent arrests.
Jarvis, the security minister, replied:
The review itself, of course, is being conducted independently by Philip Rycroft.
He will report by the end of this month which means – and of course, it is independent – that is absolutely time and space for him to reflect on any events that have taken place recently.
The Rycroft review “will inform government policy, not least in terms of cracking down on some of the foreign money – all of the foreign money – that should not be” in UK politics, Jarvis added.
Conservative MP Gregory Stafford has called for the release of all correspondence related to China between the Home Office and the Labour MP whose partner has been arrested.
He suggested that the MP “sits on a select committee that would have information which is sensitive, maybe even secret” and will have visited defence sites across the UK.
Stafford, the MP for Farnham and Bordon, asked security minister Dan Jarvis: “Has there been and will there be an urgent review of what sensitive information that Member of Parliament might have been party to?
“And, at the appropriate juncture, would he release any correspondence between his department and that Member of Parliament around things like the Chinese embassy and other matters related to China?”
Call to name MP whose partner has been arrested
Conservative MP Kieran Mullan has said the name of the MP whose partner has been arrested on suspicion of spying for China should be revealed to colleagues so they might be able to help the investigation.
The Bexhill and Battle MP said in a point of order in the Commons:
There are rumours online that the arrests of individuals for spying include the partner of a Labour MP.
“I don’t make any suggestion that that Labour MP has done anything wrong, and it could have been any of us potentially.
“But we all know across this house, we’ve worked with other MPs within parties, across parties, share information, campaign together. We may well have been subjected to activities that we could volunteer to the House authorities and other, but unless we actually get a confirmation as to who that individual is, that isn’t an easy position to be in.
“So can the House give consideration to actually letting us know who this individual is, that we might reflect on whether we can offer any helpful information.”
Arrested man ‘did not have parliamentary pass’
The partner of a Labour MP who was reportedly arrested did not have a pass to access the parliamentary estate, the Speaker said.
Ben Obese-Jecty, the Conservative MP for Huntingdon, asked whether “the partner of the sitting Labour MP arrested” had such a pass.
As Press Association reports, security minister Dan Jarvis replied: “He will understand I have come here at extremely short notice in order to provide an update to the House.
“I can’t get into the operational details of matters that took place just a few hours ago.”
Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle said: “Just to reassure you, the answer is ‘no’.”
Alex Barros-Curtis, Labour MP for Cardiff West, has asked for a meeting with the security minister after the arrest of three men on suspicion of spying for China.
Barros-Curtis told the Commons he understood one of the arrests was in his constituency.
Calls to review Chinese mega-embassy approval after spying arrests
The Liberal Democrats have questioned whether the government will review its decision to allow a Chinese mega-embassy to be built in London after the arrest of three men accused of spying for Beijing.
Lisa Smart, the Lib Dem’s Cabinet Office spokeswoman, said:
“How many times must we all come to this House to hear a report of further rounds of arrests under counter terrorism legislation for this government to take this action?”
Security minister Dan Jarvis responded that he “understands” why she would raise the embassy, insisting there is “a strong national security case for the embassy”.
Tory Sir Edward Leigh, the Father of the House, said the embassy should be paused until China “learn to behave” and called for the Chinese ambassador to be summoned.