Home secretary rejects Zarah Sultana’s claim Labour failing to improve lives – UK politics live | Politics

‘I strongly disagree’: Home secretary refutes Zarah Sultana claim that Labour is failing to improve lives

Zarah Sultana has “always taken a very different view” from the government, the home secretary has said.

Responding to the former Labour MP’s announcement that she was co-founding a new party with Jeremy Corbyn, Yvette Cooper told Sky News:

I think she has always taken a very different view to most people in the government on a lot of different things, and that’s for her to do so.

Cooper also rejected the Coventry South MP’s accusation that Labour was failing to improve people’s lives, saying:

I just strongly disagree with her.

The home secretary pointed to falling waiting times in the NHS, the announcement of additional neighbourhood police officers, extending free school meals and strengthening renters’ rights as areas where the government was acting. She said:

These are real changes [that] have a real impact on people’s lives.

As well as Cooper, co-chair of the Conservative party Nigel Huddleston is also on the media rounds this morning.

Zarah Sultana with Jeremy Corbyn in May. He said earlier he wants to offer an alternative to Labour. Photograph: Mark Kerrison/In Pictures/Getty Images

There’s sure to be more reaction today to the news that Sultana has resigned from the Labour party to join Corbyn’s Independent Alliance. But there’s more coming up today:

  • A bid to temporarily block the banning of Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation is set to be heard at the high court on Friday, ahead of a potential legal challenge against the move.

  • Councils will have to agree targets to improve the number of children ready for school, under new plans to be announced by the education secretary.

In other recently reported developments:

  • Critics of the UK’s role in the Gaza war are considering setting up an independent tribunal if, as expected, Labour blocks a bill tabled by Jeremy Corbyn backing an official inquiry. Government whips are expected to object to the former Labour party leader’s bill in the Commons on Friday, leaving him with few practical options for his legislation to pass.

  • Wes Streeting has staked the future of the NHS on a digital overhaul in which a beefed-up NHS app and new hospital league tables are intended to give patients unprecedented control over their care.

  • Some farms in England could be taken entirely out of food production under plans to make more space for nature, the environment secretary has said. Speaking at the Groundswell farming festival in Hertfordshire, Steve Reed said a revamp of post-Brexit farming subsidies and a new land use plan would be aimed at increasing food production in the most productive areas and decreasing or completely removing it in the least productive.

  • Ministers are closely watching a court case in which Vodafone is alleged to have “unjustly enriched” itself at the expense of franchise operators, and have raised the prospect of a regulatory crackdown on the sector. The small business minister, Gareth Thomas, has said he will “track very carefully” a £120m legal claim brought against Vodafone last year by a group of 62 of about 150 franchise operators.

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Key events

Liberal Democrat MP Danny Chambers’ private member’s bill has passed through the House of Commons today, with the government backing the bill.

Chambers, who is also a veterinary surgeon, said the animal welfare (import of dogs, cats and ferrets) bill will help improve the UK’s “biosecurity”.

He told the Commons:

As a vet, I’ve seen the devastating consequences of puppy smuggling. It’s unimaginably cruel to separate puppies and kittens from their mothers at a very young age, and then bring them across borders in substandard conditions where they’re then sold for maximum profit by unscrupulous traders who prioritise profit over welfare.

Turning to “biosecurity”, he added that:

There are a lot of diseases that we do not see in the UK that can affect humans as well … one of those is rabies, another’s brucella canis.

Chambers said:

The bill will close the loopholes in our pet travel rules, which are currently exploited. It does this by reducing the number of animals permitted per non-commercial movement from five per person to five per vehicle, including vehicles on board a train or a ferry, and three per person for foot or air passengers.

Careful consideration has been given to setting these limits, balancing the need to disrupt illegal trade with minimising impact on genuine pet owners. To underpin this, only an owner, not an authorised person, will be permitted to sign and declare that the movement of a dog or cat is non-commercial.

Crucially, the bill places a duty on the government to use these regulation-making powers to first deliver three key measures – a ban on the import of puppies and kittens under six months old, a ban on the import of heavily pregnant dogs and cats that are more than 42 days pregnant, and a ban on the import of dogs and cats who’ve been mutilated.

The bill will now move to the House of Lords for final approval with government backing.

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