Murrell used false accounting and fake invoices to hide SNP embezzlement, court hears – UK politics live

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Labour MPs are not looking to raise taxes to fund more benefits, the Cabinet Office minister Nick Thomas-Symonds has said. Jessica Elgot has the story.

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Jack McConnell, the former Labour Scottish first minister, has said the Peter Murrell embezzlement scandal is “embarrassing internationally” for Scotland. Speaking at a conference in Edinburgh, where he restated his calls for Holyrood and the UK parliament to hold a joint inquiry into what happened, McConnell said:

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This is not just hilarious tittle-tattle here in Scotland. This is embarrassing internationally for us now and we need to take it seriously.

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Even if it seems in some aspects – although obviously not in the criminal prosecution, which is very serious – a good source for the comedians, that’s not the point. I think the point here is the reputation of Scotland globally and I would welcome a bit of a rethink at the top and a willingness to be open with some kind of public inquiry.

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The Conservatives have criticised Yvette Cooper for her trip to China. Priti Patel, the shadow foreign secretary, said:

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As if Keir Starmer’s surrender tour earlier this year wasn’t enough, his foreign secretary is now in Beijing cosying up to the CCP [Chinese Communist party] too.

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This is little more than a distraction from the scandal engulfing the government – which involves Mandelson’s links to China as well as to a convicted paedophile – and the civil war raging at the top of the Labour Party.

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Cooper should be pushing for the release of Jimmy Lai. But Labour lack the backbone to stand up to China. Only the Conservatives will put our country first.

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Yvette Cooper, the foreign secretary, has said that a rules-based international order is in Britain and China’s “shared interest”, the Press Association says. PA reports:

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Cooper was speaking as she met the country’s vice president Han Zheng for talks on global security as part of a three-day visit to Asia.

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Cooper acknowledged “areas of disagreement” between London and Beijing but insisted that approaching discussions with “candour and respect” would help to increase mutual understanding of one another.

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Greeting the minister in the capital’s Great Hall of the People today, Han hailed a “new chapter in bilateral ties” which he said had been opened during Keir Starmer’s visit to the country in January.

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On her first visit to the country, Cooper said as two “P5 powers” – permanent member states of the UN Security Council – the UK and China must work together to address global challenges, citing wars in Ukraine and Iran and health crises like the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

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“It is in our shared interest to have a rules-based international order and to find ways to reduce rising geoeconomic tensions,” she said.

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Addressing Han at the top of the meeting, Cooper said: “I’m very pleased to be here in China, thank you for welcoming me.

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“We will have important issues of shared interest and cooperation and also areas of disagreement, but as the prime minister and President Xi [Jinping] have demonstrated, we increase our understanding of one another when we approach these conversations with candour and respect.”

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She added: “Those frank and constructive discussions can help us make meaningful progress for the benefit of our two countries and the wider world.”

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Welcoming her in Beijing’s opulent state building, Han said an “important consensus” had been reached during Starmer’s visit earlier this year after the two leaders agreed to move forward with a “comprehensive strategic dialogue” – a framework for deepening cooperation amid heightened geopolitical volatility.

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“Their important consensus has opened a new chapter for bilateral ties,” Han said.

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Yvette Cooper, the foreign secretary, has said that Peter Mandelson should never have been appointed as an ambassador.

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Speaking to reporters on China, where she is on a visit and where she was asked about the Mandelson files released yesterday, she said:

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\n

What I would say is that Peter Mandelson should never have been appointed as ambassador to the United States.

\n

There’s been a lot of transparency now about messages being released. That’s always an unedifying process but [it’s] right to be transparent.

\n

We mustn’t forget two things, first is that in the end this whole thing started about Epstein’s abuse of young women and girls, and sometimes the conversation gets pulled away from that, and secondly, I think the whole government is getting on with the most important issues that affect our country, and that’s exactly why I’m here in China having these important discussions about international security.

\n

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But, when asked specifically if she agreed with Mandelson’s criticisms of Starmer’s leadership style, and specifically whether the peer was right to describe his approach as “advance, buckle, advance, buckle”, Cooper declined to address the question and focused on her point about it being wrong to appoint Mandelson in the first place.

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Cooper visiting the Forbidden City in Beijing.","caption":"Yvette Cooper visiting the Forbidden City in Beijing.","credit":"Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA"}}],"attributes":{"pinned":false,"keyEvent":true,"summary":false},"blockCreatedOn":1780395511000,"blockCreatedOnDisplay":"06.18 EDT","blockLastUpdated":1780396789000,"blockLastUpdatedDisplay":"06.39 EDT","blockFirstPublished":1780396789000,"blockFirstPublishedDisplay":"06.39 EDT","blockFirstPublishedDisplayNoTimezone":"06.39","title":"Mandelson should never have been appointed ambassador, says Cooper, as she ducks questions about whether his Starmer criticisms correct","contributors":[],"primaryDateLine":"Tue 2 Jun 2026 07.41 EDT","secondaryDateLine":"First published on Tue 2 Jun 2026 04.09 EDT"},{"id":"6a1eaeed8f088f4650a0f1f3","elements":[{"_type":"model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement","html":"

Fiona Harvey is the Guardian’s environment editor.

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The UK’s seventh carbon budget was formally confirmed today, committing to an 87% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2042, compared with 1990 levels. The announcement follows the recommendation made by the Climate Change Committee last year.

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Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, said the commitment would help to wean the economy off fossil fuels. “As Britain faces the second fossil fuel shock of the decade, the only way to protect family and business finances is to drive for clean homegrown power that we control,” he said.

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He pointed to findings from CBI Economy and the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit thinktank, published today, that showed the net zero economy – including renewable energy companies, home insulation installers, heat pump makers and others – was worth more than £100bn a year and supported more than 1m jobs.

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He said:

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\n

What has been achieved so far by businesses and communities across the country is a great British success story – cutting costs by upgrading homes, backing British businesses, supporting one million good jobs according to new analysis from CBI Economics, and protecting our beautiful countryside.

\n

Some people want to stick their heads in the sand and let our children face the consequences of climate breakdown – but this government believes in the timeless British value of protecting our country for generations to come.

\n

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No government has yet rejected the advice of the Climate Change Committee, which is charged under the 2008 Climate Change Act with setting five-yearly carbon budgets that bind future parliaments to stringent emissions cuts, in line with the statutory goal of reaching net zero emissions by 2050. However, the Conservatives and Reform UK have pledged to repeal the act if elected, and last week the former Labour prime minister Tony Blair attacked the net zero target.

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Experts, businesses and campaigners welcomed the government’s announcement. Lord Stern, the LSE economics professor who carried out a landmark review for the last Labour government on the economics of climate change, said:

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\n

This is the first carbon budget to be presented to parliament since the unacceptable and short-sighted abandonment by some parties of the commitment to net zero. The evidence is now clearer than ever that the investments required to make the transition away from fossil fuels are far smaller than the potential costs of climate change impacts.

\n

These investments in the clean technologies and businesses of the future will lower costs, drive growth and ensure that the UK remains competitive. Any slippage now on net zero by the UK, in light of its past leadership on climate change, would have serious and adverse knock-on effects on the commitments by other countries to decarbonise their economies.

\n

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Miliband arriving for cabinet this morning.","caption":"Ed Miliband arriving for cabinet this morning.","credit":"Photograph: Toby Melville/Reuters"}}],"attributes":{"pinned":false,"keyEvent":true,"summary":false},"blockCreatedOn":1780395757000,"blockCreatedOnDisplay":"06.22 EDT","blockLastUpdated":1780396090000,"blockLastUpdatedDisplay":"06.28 EDT","blockFirstPublished":1780396090000,"blockFirstPublishedDisplay":"06.28 EDT","blockFirstPublishedDisplayNoTimezone":"06.28","title":"Miliband confirms UK’s latest carbon budget, aiming for 87% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2042","contributors":[{"name":"Fiona Harvey","imageUrl":"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/uploads/2022/12/08/Fiona_Harvey_old_image.jpg?width=300&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=df55c32c5c88b81691b6867c184b460e","largeImageUrl":"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/uploads/2022/12/08/Fiona_Harvey_old_image.png?width=300&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=3d50d6153c8c1316bf23d95433612349"}],"primaryDateLine":"Tue 2 Jun 2026 07.41 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Andy Burnham will not call an early election if he becomes prime minister after the Makerfield byelection, a spokesperson for the Greater Manchester mayor has said.

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At the weekend a report claimed Burnham was considering an early election. Initially his team did not comment on the claim.

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But today a spokesperson for Burnham said he had ruled out calling a snap election.

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The money embezzled by Peter Murrell came from SNP membership fees and donations by party members, the Edinburgh court was told. The Press Association report:

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Alan Cameron KC told the high court in Edinburgh that the former SNP chief executive had embezzled the funds from SNP party bank accounts “over which he had control”.

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He went on: “The accused made direct transfers of money and used his party charge card and those of two other staff members to make purchases not connected with party business.

\n

“Other members of staff were unaware he was using those cards for that purpose.”

\n

The court also heard Murrell falsified accounting records and created fake invoices in a bid to cover his tracks.

\n

Peter Murrell appeared in court dressed in a dark blue suit and black tie, and gave a nod to his lawyer John Scullion KC as he was led to the dock.

\n

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The Edinburgh court also heard details of the vehicles bought by Peter Murrell with money embezzled from the SNP, the Press Association reports. PA says:

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Advocate depute Alan Cameron KC said one of the vehicles included a Volkswagen Golf car, which was later sold and the proceeds used towards buying a Jaguar I-Pace worth more than £81,000.

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The advocate depute said a false invoice was created for this, submitting the claim as “stage payment”.

\n

Cameron said: “He claimed that the payment was for staging for national events.”

\n

The advocate depute also discussed the purchase of a motorhome by Murrell, which was worth £124,550.

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When police seized the vehicle from his mother’s house, the odometer showed it had only been driven for four miles.

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He said it was described as a “van rather than a motorhome” when the invoice was filed.

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Cameron said: “It was never used or seen by any other party member or employee.”

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Items bought by Peter Murrell included a £3,000 robotic lawnmower, a court hearing for the former SNP chief executive heard. The Press Association reports:

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Advocate depute Alan Cameron KC read out a list of items while setting out the prosecution narrative at the hearing, which took place before judge Lord Young.

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They included purchases from Montblanc, which sells luxury stationery, worth more than £23,000.

\n

One item included a robotic lawnmower worth more than £3,000.

\n

Cameron KC said: “This item was described as legal fees and found when police searched his house.”

\n

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In interviews this morning Nick Thomas-Symonds, the Cabinet Office minister, said that police video footage released last night showing Henry Nowak being handcuffed while bleeding to death was “absolutely harrowing”. Nowak was killed by Vickrum Digwa who has been jailed for life for murder.

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Digwa told police who arrived at the scene that he had been racially abused by Nowak.

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In an interview with Sky News, asked if he thought Nowak was the victim of unconscious racial bias by the police against white boys, Thomas-Symonds said the Independent Office for Police Conduct was investigating the conduct of the officers who attended the scene.

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He went on:

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\n

Whilst it’s absolutely right, we have to look at the conduct of what happened here and draw the lessons, it is also the case that up and down the country … there will be police officers running towards danger when others are running in the opposite direction, putting their bodies on the line to keep us safe and we shouldn’t forget that.

\n

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In his interview on the Today programme, asked about the case, Alex Burghart, the shadow Cabinet Office minister, said that the police treatment of Nowak was “absolutely abhorrent” and that it suggested that something had gone wrong with the way the police were operating.

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Asked if he thought the police treated Nowak as they did because he was white, Burghart replied: “If if that’s what happened, then that is absolutely abhorrent.”

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In what he described as an “emergency address to the nation” on YouTube this morning, Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, claimed that the case showed “we’re living in a two-tier culture in this country where the rights and privileges of white people matter less than those of ethnic minorities” and that people should respond “with pure cold rage”.

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Sarah Jones, the policing minister, is expected to make a statement to MPs on the case later today.

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Steven Morris has more on the story here.

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The UK government has let the Palestinian people down and failed to make it economically impossible for Israel to continue to act with impunity in the West Bank and Gaza, the Labour chair of the foreign affairs select committee, Emily Thornberry, has said. Patrick Wintour has the story.

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Good morning. Keir Starmer is chairing cabinet today as Labour MPs mull over the coverage of the Peter Mandelson files. In terms of revelations relating to Mandelson himself, the impact is probably not as bad as many MPs feared; Politico quotes one official as saying the mood last night was at the “top end” of expectations. Here is our main story about the data release, by Henry Dyer and Pippa Crear.

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There will be more coverage today.

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The Mandelson documents were only released because of a humble address tabled by the Conservative party. Kemi Badenoch launched this move in part because she suspected Starmer was covering up the full extent of what he knew about Mandelson’s connections with Jeffrey Epstein when he appointed him ambassador. The documents published yesterday did not provide any new evidence to back up this assertion, although some material relating to Epstein was held back because of the police investigation. But the joy of a fishing expedition is that you never quite now what you will catch, and the Tories struck gold yesterday with the revelation about Pat McFadden joking about how Labour MPs were always asking “who can we tax in order to pay benefits to others”. Most of the rightwing papers are splashing on this today, and it has the potential to be as damaging to the party as Liam Byrne’s famous “no money left” (another flippant remark, intended to be private, that was exploited ruthlessly, but unfairly, by the Tories).

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The Conservatives could sit back and take the view “job well done’”. But Alex Burghart, the shadow Cabinet Office minister, was giving interviews this morning and he told the Today programme that he thought Starmer had not revealed all his Mandelson messages.

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Burghart said:

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\n

There’s a lot of stuff that’s missing. Anybody who’s looked at these 1,500 pages will see acres and acres of white space, these constellations of asterisks, huge amounts of redactions.

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Now, some of that is fine because it’s national security issues, our relationship with the Americans.

\n

But it’s also clear there’s a lot of material that wasn’t published. And we know that because all ministers were asked to hand over their WhatsApp messages between them and Peter Mandelson and lots and lots of ministers, some very senior people, have handed over a nil return.

\n

There are almost no exchanges between the prime minister and Peter Mandelson. There are no exchanges between people like Peter Kyle, who were very close allies of Peter Mandelson. And so it’s clear that stuff has been deleted or has gone missing.

\n

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When asked if he was claiming that messages from the PM had been held back, Burghart replied: “I suspect that, if they haven’t been handed over, they’ve been deleted.”

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He pointed out that, in the Commons yesterday, when Darren Jones, the chief secretary to the PM, was asked to give an assurance that Starmer had not deleted any messages from Mandelson, Jones was unable to give that assurance. Burghart went on:

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\n

It beggars belief that there were so few exchanges between Mandelson and the prime minister. There’s almost nothing in the record.

\n

So either this stuff is being deliberately withheld or it’s been deleted.

\n

But in answer to your question, yes, it’s obvious that there is still stuff that’s missing. Whether we ever see it or not, I don’t know.

\n

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Here is the agenda for the day.

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9.30am: Keir Starmer chairs cabinet.

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9.30am: Peter Murrell, the former SNP chief executive and estranged husband of Nicola Sturgeon, is back at the high court in Edinburgh where, following his guilty plea on embezzlement charges, there will be a “narrative hearing” setting out an agreed accounts of his crimes.

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11.30am: Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, takes questions in the Commons.

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Noon: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.

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12.15pm: Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, is giving a speech at the SXSW event where he will call for a ban on social media for under-16s.

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After 12.30pm: Sarah Jones, the policing minister, is due to give a statement to MPs about the murder of Henry Nowak, and the police response to it.

","elementId":"85dc44d2-b747-4edd-b724-d94e73cd4d1c"},{"_type":"model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement","html":"

Lunchtime: Andy Burnham is doing a campaign visit in Makerfield.

","elementId":"33472234-a67b-4cf8-b36b-2da0a273bfc3"},{"_type":"model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement","html":"

1.30pm: Rhun ap Iorwerth takes questions as first minister for the first time in the Senedd.

","elementId":"fff479f8-4e7c-4fdd-9d47-e2809cfd63a6"},{"_type":"model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement","html":"

2.30pm: John Swinney, the Scottish first minister, takes questions at Holyrood for the first time on a Tuesday, under a new plan to hold FMQs twice a week, not just once a week.

","elementId":"8069846f-decb-4c5a-818c-25970a31cc3e"},{"_type":"model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement","html":"

If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line when comments are open (between 10am and 3pm), or message me on social media. I can’t read all the messages BTL, but if you put “Andrew” in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word.

","elementId":"803da725-d7e3-45d1-83b0-b0ad2b151841"},{"_type":"model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement","html":"

If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. You can reach me on Bluesky at @andrewsparrowgdn.bsky.social. The Guardian has given up posting from its official accounts on X, but individual Guardian journalists are there, I still have my account, and if you message me there at @AndrewSparrow, I will see it and respond if necessary.

","elementId":"abba3e03-c98b-4152-aacb-77b3fb6ab986"},{"_type":"model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement","html":"

I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos. No error is too small to correct. And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog.

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Key events

Miliband confirms UK’s latest carbon budget, aiming for 87% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2042

Fiona Harvey

Fiona Harvey is the Guardian’s environment editor.

The UK’s seventh carbon budget was formally confirmed today, committing to an 87% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2042, compared with 1990 levels. The announcement follows the recommendation made by the Climate Change Committee last year.

Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, said the commitment would help to wean the economy off fossil fuels. “As Britain faces the second fossil fuel shock of the decade, the only way to protect family and business finances is to drive for clean homegrown power that we control,” he said.

He pointed to findings from CBI Economy and the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit thinktank, published today, that showed the net zero economy – including renewable energy companies, home insulation installers, heat pump makers and others – was worth more than £100bn a year and supported more than 1m jobs.

He said:

What has been achieved so far by businesses and communities across the country is a great British success story – cutting costs by upgrading homes, backing British businesses, supporting one million good jobs according to new analysis from CBI Economics, and protecting our beautiful countryside.

Some people want to stick their heads in the sand and let our children face the consequences of climate breakdown – but this government believes in the timeless British value of protecting our country for generations to come.

No government has yet rejected the advice of the Climate Change Committee, which is charged under the 2008 Climate Change Act with setting five-yearly carbon budgets that bind future parliaments to stringent emissions cuts, in line with the statutory goal of reaching net zero emissions by 2050. However, the Conservatives and Reform UK have pledged to repeal the act if elected, and last week the former Labour prime minister Tony Blair attacked the net zero target.

Experts, businesses and campaigners welcomed the government’s announcement. Lord Stern, the LSE economics professor who carried out a landmark review for the last Labour government on the economics of climate change, said:

This is the first carbon budget to be presented to parliament since the unacceptable and short-sighted abandonment by some parties of the commitment to net zero. The evidence is now clearer than ever that the investments required to make the transition away from fossil fuels are far smaller than the potential costs of climate change impacts.

These investments in the clean technologies and businesses of the future will lower costs, drive growth and ensure that the UK remains competitive. Any slippage now on net zero by the UK, in light of its past leadership on climate change, would have serious and adverse knock-on effects on the commitments by other countries to decarbonise their economies.

The Guardian