Good morning. Keir Starmer is giving a press conference this morning where, according to No 10, he will discuss the Iran war, and how the government is supporting people at home. Now we are in April, the new financial year is starting, and the government is highlighting measures it has introduced that will help people with the cost of living. The Conservatives have an alternative list, and they are claiming this morning that “Keir Starmer and his chancellor have piled on extra costs leaving families almost £1,000 worse off this year”.
The chancellor, Rachel Reeves, has been doing her own media too. She is on the Jeremy Vine show later, but she has already given an interview to BBC Breakfast in which she gave a marginally clearer idea of what she is planning to do to help people with energy bills than she did when she made a statement to MPs last week.
We knew that she has already ruled out a universal support package, and that she wants to target help towards poorer families. Now she has signalled that she will not intervene until the autumn, when the central heating starts to go back on.
double quotation markFrom July to September, gas usage, especially by families and pensioners, is the lowest of any months of the year because it is the summer months …
It will be really from the autumn onwards that people’s gas usage starts increasing. So at the moment we are working on a range of contingencies. And we are looking at more targeted measures. We are looking at ways we can support people based on their household income.
Referring to the universal support package introduced by the last Conservative government after the invastion of Ukraine, she said:
double quotation markI want to learn the lessons of the past because when Russia invaded Ukraine, the richest, the best-off third of households got more than a third of the support. That makes no sense at all.
10am: Keir Starmer holds a press conference in Downing Street.
Morning: Kemi Badenoch is in Solihull to announce the Conservatives’ plan for a “national pothole patrol”.
10am: Reform UK is holding a press conference in Glasgow.
Lunchtime: Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, is interviewed by Jeremy Vine on Radio 2.
Afternoon: Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, is visiting south-west Hertfordshire.
Afternoon: Reeves is chairing a roundtable meeting with supermarket bosses.
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