Foreign secretary defends children as young as 13 needing digital ID
The foreign secretary has defended children as young as 13 needing digital ID, reports the PA news agency.
Asked by LBC whether she supported the Department for Science Innovation and Technology’s consultation on digital ID for young children, Yvette Cooper said:
Everybody has forms of digital ID, don’t they, now. I mean, we all have different ways of having to prove who we are.
She added:
Lots of 13-year-olds already do [have a form of digital ID], and what the department is going to be consulting on is exactly how that should be taken forward.
I do think that this is the right way forward, to have this standardised process now, and it’s something that we had been already setting out for people who come to work from abroad.
Last month, the prime minister announced plans for a digital ID system, which will become mandatory as a means of proving the right to work in the UK.
In other news, the leader of Plaid Cymru has said the party would bring “new energy” to the Senedd after 26 years of Welsh Labour in power, ahead of the party’s annual conference. The party conference will be held in Swansea until Saturday.
Rhun ap Iorwerth told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:
Plaid Cymru is a party that now is putting forward that radical idea on health, on education, on creating better and better-paid jobs, on tackling poverty, that Labour’s failed to deal with.
We’ve had one party, as it happens, in power over 26 years and I think they’ve run out of steam, I think they’ve run out of ideas, and having a chance to put a Plaid Cymru government in place, new leadership for our country after 26 years of standing still frankly, we can put a new energy into getting to grips with health, getting to grips with education and the economy.
I’ll bring you key updates from the party conference today as they come in as well as other developments in UK politics on stories such as:
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Senior Scottish National party strategists believe a majority at next year’s Holyrood elections is “within reach” despite failing public trust in Scotland’s government as they focus in on the “battleground cohort” of independence supporters who have drifted away from the SNP. Before the party’s annual conference in Aberdeen this weekend, one senior source said the path to a majority – by winning 65 seats or more – was “more straightforward now” than it had been for a long time because of the Tory collapse and Labour’s unpopularity.
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Bridget Phillipson is pushing the prime minister and chancellor to scrap the two-child benefit cap entirely in next month’s budget, with the education secretary telling the Guardian the evidence is clear that it needs to be removed. Phillipson, who is finalising a report to Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves on child poverty, said abolishing the cap was the most cost effective way to make lives better for young disadvantaged people.
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Keir Starmer has said the Gaza ceasefire deal “would not have happened without President Trump’s leadership”, but stopped short of endorsing the US president for a Nobel peace prize. Speaking on the final day of his trade visit to India, Starmer said the agreement “must now be implemented in full, without delay, and accompanied by the immediate lifting of all restrictions on life-saving humanitarian aid to Gaza”.
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The leader of Plaid Cymru, Rhun ap Iorwerth, has said next year’s Welsh parliament elections will be a two-horse race between his party and Reform UK. Ap Iorwerth said voters could choose to back Plaid’s vision of a progressive Wales or face the division upon which Reform thrives.
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Nigel Farage has claimed teachers would go on strike within weeks of a Reform UK election win, and accused them of “poisoning our kids” by telling them that black children are victims and white children oppressors. The Reform UK leader set out his view on British schools in an event for a private US Christian college in Michigan, claiming the “Marxist left” was “now in control of our education system”.
Key events
Reform UK record its biggest ever byelection win, gaining council seat from Tories
However, it wasn’t such a great night for the Lib Dems (or Labour or the Conservatives either) in the election for the Skelton East ward for Redcar and Cleveland council, where Reform UK set a new vote record with 65.3%, significantly ahead of Labour at 19.2% of the vote and the Conservative party (13.9%). The Lib Dems trailed, with only 1.5% of the vote.
Reform’s biggest byelection win means they’ve gained a seat from the Tories.
Skelton East – Redcar and Cleveland UA
Reform UK gain from Conservative
➡️ Reform UK 839 65.3%
🔴 Labour 247 19.2%
🔵 Conservative 179 13.9%
🔶 Stuart Saunders Lib Dem 19 1.5%Thanks to Stuart for standing. pic.twitter.com/ywKIIuLs2Q
— ALDC (@ALDC) October 9, 2025
‘A stonker of a night for us’: Davey celebrates three council byelection wins for Lib Dems
Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey has described “a stonker of a night” for his party, after the Lib Dems held two seats in byelections and gained a seat from the Consevatives in another.
Parish councillor Kevin Smith beat Reform UK’s Terry Tume and the Consevative party’s Lucille Baker in the Kenn Valley (Teignbridge) council byelection within the shadow chancellor Mel Stride’s constituency.
Kenn Valley (Teignbridge) Council By-Election Result:
🔶 LDM: 50.4% (+11.0)
➡️ RFM: 23.1% (New)
🌳 CON: 9.6% (-19.0)
🙋 Ind: 8.2% (New)
🌍 GRN: 5.5% (-13.9)
🌹 LAB: 2.7% (-9.9)
🙋 Ind: 0.5% (New)Liberal Democrat GAIN from Conservative.
Changes w/ 2023.— Election Maps UK (@ElectionMapsUK) October 10, 2025
The Lib Dems held two other seats in council byelections, holding off Reform in Yateley West (Hart) and winning in Widcombe and Lyncombe (Bath and North East Somerset).
Responding to the results, Davey said:
A stonker of a night for us. Three huge wins, Reform nowhere near us and the Tories down to ten percent in Mel Stride’s own seat.
We are the only party taking Farage on and the only party beating him.
A Lib Dem source added:
The Conservatives are in meltdown in the shadow chancellor’s own back yard.
When Mel Stride pledged cuts at Conservative party conference, we didn’t realise his first cut would be to the Tory vote in his own seat.
✅ Liberal Democrat HOLD
Yesterday’s Yateley West (Hart) council by-election result:
LDEM: 54.7% (-5.9)
REF: 27.9% (+27.9)
CON: 17.3% (-8.2)No Lab (-10.5) as prev.
+/- 2023
Estimated turnout: ~30% (-4)https://t.co/QSSdXxbUXt
— Britain Elects (@BritainElects) October 9, 2025
Widcombe & Lyncombe (Bath & North East Somerset) Council By-Election Result:
🔶 LDM: 44.4% (-11.8)
🌍 GRN: 15.4% (+0.6)
🌹 LAB: 12.2% (+4.7)
➡️ RFM: 11.9% (New)
🌳 CON: 8.6% (-12.8)
🙋 Ind: 4.8% (New)
🙋 Ind: 2.6% (New)Liberal Democrat HOLD.
Changes w/ 2023.— Election Maps UK (@ElectionMapsUK) October 9, 2025
Phillipson presses Starmer and Reeves to abolish two-child benefit cap in full
Kiran Stacey
Bridget Phillipson is pushing the prime minister and chancellor to scrap the two-child benefit cap entirely in next month’s budget, with the education secretary telling the Guardian the evidence is clear that it needs to be removed.
Phillipson, who is finalising a report to Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves on child poverty, said abolishing the cap was the most cost effective way to make lives better for young disadvantaged people.
Her intervention comes after the Guardian revealed that Rachel Reeves is exploring a “tapered” system which would remove the cap in part but not wholly – for example, by moving the cap to three or four children instead.
Officials say, however, the chancellor will find it difficult to go against the findings of the child poverty taskforce, which Phillipson co-chairs – meaning Reeves is now under more pressure than ever to find the money to abolish the cap.
Phillipson told the Guardian’s Politics Weekly podcast:
I’ve been clear in public and in conversations with colleagues about what the evidence tells us and what needs to happen. Every year that passes, because of the two-child limit, more children move into poverty and the evidence is there for all to see.
The education secretary is running to be deputy leader of her party after the resignation of Angela Rayner last month. She told the Guardian she was seeking the role in part to be given a mandate from Labour members to push the prime minister to do more on child poverty.
Phillipson said:
I have pushed to take action ahead of the budget – and that’s why we’re expanding free school meals, which will lift 100,000 children out of poverty – but there is more to do. That is why I’m seeking a mandate from members to do more.
Asked if she was seeking a mandate specifically to push for the removal of the cap, and not only for it to be tapered, she agreed. “Members should know that if I’m at that cabinet table, I know what needs to happen and I know what we need to do,” she added.
Foreign Office chief to visit China after collapse of high-profile espionage case
Eleni Courea
The head of the Foreign Office will travel to China next week as ministers come under pressure over the collapse of a high-profile espionage case, the Guardian can disclose.
Oliver Robbins, who as permanent secretary of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) is its most senior civil servant, will visit China on “long-planned” government business.
The trip comes during the same week ministers are expected to face questions over whether they had a hand in the abandonment of charges against two men, including a former parliamentary researcher, accused of spying for Beijing. Christopher Cash and Christopher Berry, who had always maintained their innocence, now have no case to answer.
Conservative MPs will seek to haul ministers to parliament to explain the sequence of events that led to the collapse of the trial of Cash and Berry, which had been due to begin this week.
Downing Street has said there was no ministerial or official involvement in the case being pulled.
But in an extraordinary disclosure Stephen Parkinson, the director of public prosecutions, said prosecutors were forced to drop the case after failing to obtain a witness statement from the government stating that China posed a “threat to the national security of the UK”.
Parkinson told MPs in a letter on Tuesday that “efforts were made over many months” to obtain this piece of evidence and that without it the case “could not succeed”, although legal experts have since cast doubt on whether it would have been necessary.
The developments have raised questions about the government’s diplomatic rapprochement with Beijing ahead of a crunch decision on whether to approve a proposal for a Chinese super-embassy in east London.
Robbins will become the latest senior government figure to travel to Beijing, after recent trips by Peter Kyle, the business secretary, for trade talks in September and Jonathan Powell, the national security adviser, for high-level meetings in July. Keir Starmer is expected to visit China early in the new year.
Starmer accused of pushing out some of last progressive allies in No 10 shake-up
Kiran Stacey
Keir Starmer has been accused of pushing some of his last remaining progressive allies out of government as he embarks on another shake-up of his Downing Street operation designed to empower his chief secretary, Darren Jones.
The prime minister is overseeing a reorganisation of several key parts of his government, including the delivery and policy units, to refocus the policy work and give Jones more direct control of the machinery of government.
The changes are part of an attempt by Starmer to regain the political initiative after a troubled first year in office, during which Labour has slumped in the polls and he has been accused of showing a lack of political vision.
However, the moves have led to the departures of Carys Roberts and Muneera Lula, whom allies describe as two of the more leftwing members of the policy unit. Though both were offered jobs in the overhauled unit, friends say they felt their expertise would not be as highly valued after the changes.
Recent appointments to that unit include Axel Heitmueller, a former senior associate at the Tony Blair Institute (TBI), while Harvey Redgrave, another TBI alumnus, has been put in day-to-day charge of the team. Toby Lloyd, a former adviser to Theresa May, is understood to be joining to advise on housing and infrastructure policy.
The changes add to a sense of flux around the prime minister, with several of his longest-serving allies having left in recent weeks. They include Paul Ovenden, Starmer’s director of political strategy, and Steph Driver, who was head of communications.
One special adviser said:
Carys and Muneera were the finest policy minds in that building, and understood exactly what Keir is trying to do. Their departure leaves an enormous hole, and people fear this is part of a wider pattern of a progressive clear-out.
Another senior aide said:
A lot of women are leaving Downing Street right now. And if you look at who is being brought in to replace them, it is quite a lot of centrist men.
Downing Street declined to comment. Allies of the prime minister say he has not abandoned his progressive ideals, pointing to his recent conference speech, during which he forcefully rebutted the arguments of Nigel Farage and Reform UK.
The foreign secretary has dodged questions on whether Israel needs new political leadership.
Speaking on Good Morning Britain, Yvette Cooper was asked about whether the removal of Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel and Hamas in Gaza was necessary to get long-term peace in the region. She replied:
What we’ve had so far is now the detailed agreement on the first phase that was around five of the 20 points of the plan that was set out have now been agreed to in detail as part of phase one.
The first thing is that that has to be implemented, and there’s a huge amount of work, particularly on the humanitarian aid.
Asked about reports of continued bombing inside Gaza, Cooper said the government wants to see “a complete end to all fighting” immediately.
Cooper, who is on the media round this morning, told Radio 4’s Today Programme that the ceasefire in Gaza must be the beginning of the end of the war.
The foreign secretary said:
This has to be the beginning of the end of the war, and the delivery of a just and lasting peace, of security for Palestinians and Israelis alike.
We’ve had two agonising years of suffering, tens of thousands of lives lost, hostages being held far away from their families for two years.
Speaking to BBC Breakfast, Cooper said there are no plans for British or European troops in Gaza after the ceasefire. Cooper told the news programme:
That’s not our plan, there’s no plans to do that.
But there is an immediate proposal for the US to lead what is effectively like a monitoring process to make sure that this happens on the ground, to oversee the process with hostage release, and also making sure that this first stage is implemented, getting the aid in place, but they have also made very clear that they expect the troops on the ground to be provided by neighbouring states, and that is something that we do expect to happen.
Cooper said there are international discussions on an “international security force” and the UK was continuing to contribute in other ways, including looking at getting private finance into Gaza.
The leader of Plaid Cymru has ruled out holding a referendum on independence in the next five years if he became first minister, reports the PA news agency.
Rhun ap Iorwerth told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:
This isn’t an independence election coming up in May next year. There won’t be a referendum now … not in the next five years at all.
Asked if he would accept free movement of people from the EU, he said:
We’re very supportive and very eager to see us getting back into the single market, into the customs union. We know that movement of people is something that is a part of that.
I think it’s a yes because we know how much we miss the movement of people both ways into and from the European Union, and the way that it’s affected so many sectors.
He also said he wants to grow the Welsh economy, telling the programme:
We have Welsh rates of income tax, part of income tax now comes directly into the Welsh Treasury, we want to grow the Welsh economy.
That’s why we have put together ‘making Wales work’ – probably the most comprehensive economic strategy in any part of the UK at the moment – because we desperately need it here in Wales.
Our economy under Labour has been underperforming. We want to move forward from that because people deserve better.
UK government needs to work with China but there are ‘series of security threats’, says Cooper
The UK government needs to work with China, but there are a “whole series of security threats”, the foreign secretary has said.
Asked whether China was a “friend or foe”, speaking on LBC, Yvette Cooper said:
We’ve been clear, there’s a whole series of security threats that have come from China, for example, things like transnational repression, for example, things like cyber threats and attacks and industrial espionage, and so on.
They are also, of course, an important trading partner, and also they’re somebody that we need to work with on things like climate change.
But where there are national security threats, we need to take them immensely seriously and respond to them, and we continue to do that.
In a seperate interview, Cooper declined to say whether she has seen a dossier outlining China as a threat to the UK’s national security.
Speaking on Radio 4’s Today Programme, the foreign secretary was asked whether she had seen such a document while serving as home secretary. She responded:
We know China poses threats to UK national security.
Referring to the collapse of a high-profile espionage case, Cooper added:
I am deeply frustrated about this case, because I, of course, wanted to see it prosecuted, but ministers were not involved in any of the evidence that was put to the Crown Prosecution Service or the Crown Prosecution Service’s independent decisions.
Friday’s agenda
Here is what is on the UK politics agenda today:
Friday: The government, Fujitsu and Post Office are to respond to the first volume of the final inquiry report. The report said Post Office bosses should have known Horizon was faulty, but “maintained the fiction that its data was always accurate” when prosecuting post office operators.
Friday: The Scottish Labour leader, Anas Sarwar, will visit the University of Edinburgh’s Advanced Computing Facility to highlight the importance of innovation to Scotland’s economy.
8.45am: Plaid Cymru annual conference in Swansea begins. Leader Rhun ap Iorwerth will make his speech at 3pm.
10am: Reform UK leader Nigel Farage will visit Caerphilly ahead of its byelection, campaigning with candidate Llyr Powell.
10am: Scottish Green co-leaders Gillian Mackay and Ross Greer will hold a press call in Coatbridge, north Lanarkshire, on the upcoming land reform bill entering stage three in the Scottish parliament. This will be the first formal visit of the Scottish Greens co-leaders since taking office last month.
10am: Former Scottish health secretary Jane Freeman is scheduled to give evidence at the Scottish hospitals inquiry.
2.30pm: Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana will discuss their new political party at The World Transformed conference in Manchester.
Early afternoon: Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey will be on a gardening-related visit in Surrey.
Foreign secretary defends children as young as 13 needing digital ID
The foreign secretary has defended children as young as 13 needing digital ID, reports the PA news agency.
Asked by LBC whether she supported the Department for Science Innovation and Technology’s consultation on digital ID for young children, Yvette Cooper said:
Everybody has forms of digital ID, don’t they, now. I mean, we all have different ways of having to prove who we are.
She added:
Lots of 13-year-olds already do [have a form of digital ID], and what the department is going to be consulting on is exactly how that should be taken forward.
I do think that this is the right way forward, to have this standardised process now, and it’s something that we had been already setting out for people who come to work from abroad.
Last month, the prime minister announced plans for a digital ID system, which will become mandatory as a means of proving the right to work in the UK.
In other news, the leader of Plaid Cymru has said the party would bring “new energy” to the Senedd after 26 years of Welsh Labour in power, ahead of the party’s annual conference. The party conference will be held in Swansea until Saturday.
Rhun ap Iorwerth told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:
Plaid Cymru is a party that now is putting forward that radical idea on health, on education, on creating better and better-paid jobs, on tackling poverty, that Labour’s failed to deal with.
We’ve had one party, as it happens, in power over 26 years and I think they’ve run out of steam, I think they’ve run out of ideas, and having a chance to put a Plaid Cymru government in place, new leadership for our country after 26 years of standing still frankly, we can put a new energy into getting to grips with health, getting to grips with education and the economy.
I’ll bring you key updates from the party conference today as they come in as well as other developments in UK politics on stories such as:
-
Senior Scottish National party strategists believe a majority at next year’s Holyrood elections is “within reach” despite failing public trust in Scotland’s government as they focus in on the “battleground cohort” of independence supporters who have drifted away from the SNP. Before the party’s annual conference in Aberdeen this weekend, one senior source said the path to a majority – by winning 65 seats or more – was “more straightforward now” than it had been for a long time because of the Tory collapse and Labour’s unpopularity.
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Bridget Phillipson is pushing the prime minister and chancellor to scrap the two-child benefit cap entirely in next month’s budget, with the education secretary telling the Guardian the evidence is clear that it needs to be removed. Phillipson, who is finalising a report to Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves on child poverty, said abolishing the cap was the most cost effective way to make lives better for young disadvantaged people.
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Keir Starmer has said the Gaza ceasefire deal “would not have happened without President Trump’s leadership”, but stopped short of endorsing the US president for a Nobel peace prize. Speaking on the final day of his trade visit to India, Starmer said the agreement “must now be implemented in full, without delay, and accompanied by the immediate lifting of all restrictions on life-saving humanitarian aid to Gaza”.
-
The leader of Plaid Cymru, Rhun ap Iorwerth, has said next year’s Welsh parliament elections will be a two-horse race between his party and Reform UK. Ap Iorwerth said voters could choose to back Plaid’s vision of a progressive Wales or face the division upon which Reform thrives.
-
Nigel Farage has claimed teachers would go on strike within weeks of a Reform UK election win, and accused them of “poisoning our kids” by telling them that black children are victims and white children oppressors. The Reform UK leader set out his view on British schools in an event for a private US Christian college in Michigan, claiming the “Marxist left” was “now in control of our education system”.
