Burnham says days of criminal gangs making money from dumping waste are ‘over’
Hello and welcome to the UK politics live blog.
The days of criminal gangs making easy money from dumping waste are “over”, the prime minister will say on a visit to a waste site in Yorkshire later today.
Illegal dumps in West Yorkshire, Surrey and Kent will be cleared up using taxpayer money, Andy Burnham has announced, as he promised a new drive to tackle toxic waste.
Ministers have identified dumps in Bradford, Runnymede and the Isle of Sheppey, which collectively contain about 22,000 tonnes of illegal waste, to be cleared in the next phase of the government’s national clear-up effort.
Meanwhile, fines will be raised for rogue dumpers, and AI-powered drones will be used to detect illegal activity while it happens, as the government looks to prioritise prevention alongside clean-up efforts.
Burnham said in a statement:
These toxic dumps have blighted communities for too long. I said we would clean them up – and that’s exactly what we’re announcing today.
He added:
These mountains of rubbish have been a clear sign to communities that politics hasn’t been working for them or their area.
This government is going to tackle the issues that have been ignored by Westminster for too long and bring back hope.
Hundreds of illegal waste sites have been reported across England, with a BBC investigation recently uncovering 11 “supersites” that contain more than 20,000 tonnes of rubbish.
One of the country’s most notorious sites is in Burnham’s own constituency of Makerfield, where a rotting, rat-infested mountain of waste has remained for more than 20 months. The site was identified for clean-up in March alongside two others, but locals say they have seen little improvement in the site since then.
During the byelection campaign, which Burnham won earlier this year, voters in the area told the Guardian they would vote for him specifically to get rid of that one site.
Read the full story here:
In other developments:
Andy Burnham has said government money alone may not be enough to get rough sleepers off the streets by Christmas, as he issued a “rallying call” for councils, charities and communities to help solve the problem. Speaking on a visit to the north-east of England, he said he felt “very passionately” about tackling homelessness and wanted the wider society to play a part in wiping it out.
Burnham is “too chicken” to approve the controversial Jackdaw and Rosebank oil and gasfields, the Tories have claimed. Production had been approved by the previous Conservative government, but those decisions were quashed after a legal challenge by Greenpeace, leaving Labour ministers to decide whether drilling should go ahead.
Labour could lose dozens of seats to the Green party if the government allows new drilling in the North Sea, according to internal research shared with the Guardian. Green party analysis suggests up to 50 Labour MPs – including key Andy Burnham ally Louise Haigh – could lose their seats at the next election if the government fails to make urgent climate action a priority or allows new drilling for oil and gas in the North Sea.
The Tories believe they can cut energy bills by £540 a year for the next two decades by prioritising cheap energy over net zero. Speaking in London, the shadow energy secretary Claire Coutinho said, when she was a minister, civil servants had been unable to prove to her that wind and solar energy was cheaper than fossil fuels.
Burnham has warned of the dangers of open-water swimming as he called the deaths of a mother, father and their teenage daughter who got into difficulty in water off Sussex “a terrible family tragedy”. The prime minister expressed his sympathies as a young girl from the same family remained in a critical condition in hospital.
Key events
Andy Burnham has said fly-tippers will be forced to pay for the clean-up when they dump waste illegally.
The prime minister laid out his plans to crackdown on waste crimes as he visited an illegal dump in West Yorkshire.
He told broadcasters:
We’ve begun a much more networked approach to this, where we’re bringing the National Crime Agency in to work with the Environment Agency, increasing the penalties and bearing down now on the organised crime that lies behind some of what you see behind me.
Asked why the National Crime Agency was involved, the prime minister said:
It’s building the intelligence as to who is behind this, the networks that are orchestrating what is a very serious crime, and then using the Proceeds of Crime Act to make them pay for the clean-up.
It cannot be right that we leave the situation to build, the public purse then exposed in relation to the clean-up.
But actually we should be getting in much earlier, apprehending them, using all of the intelligence that comes through that investigation to make sure the polluter pays.
The prime minister has defended new government advice that will tell asylum seekers that rape and domestic abuse are serious crimes.
Speaking to reporters on a visit to an illegal waste dump in Bradford, West Yorkshire, Andy Burnham said:
As a government, we have a very clear principle: if you break UK law, you will be removed from the country and we have seen that in relation to immigration, where removals are significantly up.
I’m currently working to ensure that foreign national offenders who can be removed from the prison system are removed from that system.
So it follows that if we’re taking this approach, it’s made explicitly clear what the UK law is and what the societal norms of the UK are, and that’s why this approach is being taken.
The guidance, published on Wednesday, forms part of a Home Office document entitled ‘Understanding Behaviours And Expectations In The UK’, which also provides guidance on gender equality and respect in public.
Richard Tice defended Nigel Farage after the Reform UK leader chose not to attend the official count for the Clacton byelection.
The party’s deputy leader said Farage led a “brilliant campaign” and secured an “incredible result”.
Asked at a press conference whether Reform was coming across as thin-skinned, Tice said: “Far from it … we get more scrutiny than everybody else.
“But isn’t it interesting, Nigel’s success in Clacton, getting a thousand more votes than he secured (previously), despite a much, much lower turnout.
“That was an incredible result through hard work, through a brilliant campaign.”
He added: “We’re going back up in the polls, and we’re back ahead of Labour. We’re not afraid of competition. In a sense, democracy demands competition, and voters have got more choice. That’s a good thing. None of us have ever claimed we’re perfect.”
Tice defends Montgomerie suspension
Reform’s deputy leader has defended the suspension of party supporter Tim Montgomerie.
Speaking to reporters, Richard Tice said:
With regard to other matters, Tim, and things, we’re a fast-growing political party.
There’ll be a range of views, and sometimes we’ll agree, and sometimes we’ll have a debate and discussion.
That’s what you do in business. That’s what you do in a boardroom. That’s what you do when you’re brainstorming.
But what we’ve always said is that actually, when you are, when you’re having your discussions about those things, in the nicest possible way, as you would in a boardroom or in a brainstorming session in a company, you keep it behind closed doors, and then you go out and sell a great message.
That’s what we’re doing.
Value being generated by student loans is “not what it should be”, Reform UK’s deputy leader said.
Asked by reporters about the funding of the scheme by stopping foreign students accessing loans, Richard Tice said:
Regarding the funding of this, cash is cash. Whether you think that it’s cash as a positive in a balance sheet or a bank account, or whether you’re borrowing it, it’s money. It’s cash.
As Suella quite rightly said, the amount of money going into student loans, it’s all government money, and this government is borrowing vast sums.
And the point made was that the value being extracted or being generated by so many student loans is not what it should be.
Gender studies and golf course studies are examples of “Mickey Mouse” degrees, Suella Braverman has said.
Asked to name a specific degree which falls under Reform UK’s definition of a “Mickey Mouse” course that should be avoided, the party’s education spokesperson said:
In terms of Mickey Mouse courses, listen, this has been well-chronicled for many years. Whether it’s gender studies, whether it’s golf course studies, I think I’ve seen there’s not a necessity. There’s not a value in many of these degrees.
Now I know that might be uncomfortable to those people who have those qualifications, but the reality is you’ve got to ask yourself: what are your graduate outcomes looking like?
Have you really spent three years of your life in the best possible way, and was it worth £50,000 worth of debt.
Young people are coming out of university unable to get on to the housing ladder, unable and unwilling to get married, unable to start a family. Why? Because they’re starting off with their hands behind their backs because they’ve been sold a line that university is the pathway to success.
Reform: don’t waste time ‘studying for a pointless degree at a mediocre university’
Suella Braverman has urged young people getting their GCSE results not to “waste your time studying for a pointless degree at a mediocre university”.
The Reform UK education spokesperson made the comment as she set out the party’s plans to create 600,000 more apprenticeship starts a year by the end of the first term of a Reform government.
As she set out the policy, Braverman addressed students receiving their exam results, telling them:
My advice to those young people today getting their results, my advice to those grandparents and those parents looking at the young people in their families who may be getting their results today: Be careful, don’t get ripped off by the great university scam.
Don’t waste your time studying for a pointless degree at a mediocre university. If you want to work hard, if you want to move forward, earn a wage, and have opportunities in your life, take up and look for apprentices.
And a Reform UK government will ensure that those opportunities exist. Your success is our country’s success. We’re on your side, and when I said I wanted a skills revolution, I meant it.
Home secretary targeting ‘fair spread’ of asylum accommodation
Home secretary Shabana Mahmood said she wants a “fair spread” of accommodation to house asylum seekers.
Prime minister Andy Burnham said last week the country “cannot have a situation where it’s only the poorest communities in the country” housing asylum seekers.
Mahmood said she is targeting a mixed model of accommodation utilising military sites, former student apartments, bedsits and homes of multiple occupancy.
She told the Times:
You’ve got to get a fair spread and what we are doing with the new model of asylum accommodation and the future of asylum accommodation is think carefully about how you have a fair spread that doesn’t end up being in one community or one type of community.
In a way it doesn’t really matter whether you’re in an affluent part of the country or in a more deprived constituency like mine.
A change in the population, the demographic and in the housing in which asylum seekers are often housed and the transient nature of that population does have an impact on communities.
Foreign secretary Ed Miliband has issued a rebuke to Israel after it published a tender for construction of a settlement in the occupied West Bank, calling it an “unacceptable and destructive act”.
He said the UK would not “stand back and accept the destruction of the two-state solution”, as he pledged to set out measures in response to Israeli policies in the coming weeks.
Israeli foreign minister Gideon Sa’ar rejected the statement and its “patronising tone”.
Miliband said the UK had been clear publicly and privately about its opposition to the E1 settlement project, which he said risks endangering a two-state solution by separating the West Bank from East Jerusalem.
“I made clear to the Israeli foreign minister Gideon Sa’ar that the Israeli government must halt E1 plans immediately, retract the tender and stop all settlement expansion,” the foreign secretary said.
Aletha Adu
Andy Burnham has floated a number of policies, ideas and ambitions for his government since becoming prime minister, from shifting power out of Westminster, bringing services under public control and addressing the rising cost of living.
But many of his promises are not actually firm commitments, so what has he pledged, how much will it cost and when should the public expect change?
Farage using Christianity ‘to stir anti-Muslim feeling’, says Rowan Williams
Caroline Davies
A former archbishop of Canterbury has accused Nigel Farage of misusing the UK’s Christianity “to channel anti-Muslim feeling” and said he also had “some awkward questions” for the far-right activist Tommy Robinson.
Dr Rowan Williams, who was the archbishop of Canterbury for 10 years until 2012, said there was an “inevitable scepticism these days about some claims to religious conviction”.
Speaking to the New Humanist magazine, Williams said: “I suspect really that Farage and others want to channel anti-Muslim feeling, and it helps to have ‘we’re a Christian society’ to fling back. It gives a sort of ballast.”
Asked what he believed was driving Christian nationalism in the UK, Williams said:
There are lots of possible causes. Anxiety about migration, anti-Islamism. In France, that anxiety has a secular aspect, but the St George’s Cross still means something in the English imagination, which still has a Christian aspect.
The second thing is the globalising of all political discourse. The message given at international Christian conservative gatherings is that self-respecting nationalist movements need a bit of theology injected into them.
Ironically, for someone like Nigel Farage, it’s about trying to find a presentational strategy that allows him to be taken seriously outside England. He’s often not here, after all.
Then again, if we’re looking for what animates Christian nationalism, I think it’s in part the very simple search for someone to blame.
Working in Keir Starmer’s No 10 ‘unbearable’, says Sue Gray
Rowena Mason
Keir Starmer’s former chief of staff has lifted the lid on how “unbearable” it was working in No 10, revealing she feared her conversations were being recorded by colleagues seeking to leak her remarks to the media.
Sue Gray, who was the most powerful adviser in Downing Street before her resignation in 2024, was highly critical of the working environment under Starmer, saying she was “disappointed” that he did not act on her concerns about staff briefing journalists against her.
In an interview with the Political Currency podcast, shared with the Guardian, she gave her first major analysis of the extreme tensions in the early days of Starmer’s operation, providing an insight into the culture of what has been called a “boys’ club” operating with Downing Street.
In the weeks before Gray quit, Starmer was accused of having lost control of his senior team after a series of acrimonious leaks to the media about his chief of staff’s pay being higher than that of the prime minister and her apparently difficult relationships with senior colleagues.
Almost one in four boys in England received top grades in maths while results in English improved across the board, helping to propel improved GCSE results for this year’s cohort of 16-year-olds.
The stronger performances in maths helped pupils taking GCSEs in year 11 reach a record level for higher grades in England outside the Covid pandemic years, when exams were replaced by teacher assessments.
The overall results for 16-year-olds nudged slightly higher compared with last year, with the proportion receiving grades 7, 8 and 9 – equivalent to grades A and A* – rising by 0.1 of a percentage point to 23.1%. The proportion of nearly 700,000 16-year-olds in England who got a grade 4 or better – equivalent to a C or higher – also rose to 70.7%, compared with 70.5% in 2025.
Some of the strongest performances appeared to come in the compulsory subject of maths, where 22.3% received 7s or better, including 24% of boys and 20.5% of girls. But girls did worse than last year in lower grades, dropping from 71% awarded 4 and above to 70.7%, while boys improved further to 72.8%.
My colleague Taz Ali has all the latest news and reaction on results day in our GCSE results blog here:
Burnham says days of criminal gangs making money from dumping waste are ‘over’
Hello and welcome to the UK politics live blog.
The days of criminal gangs making easy money from dumping waste are “over”, the prime minister will say on a visit to a waste site in Yorkshire later today.
Illegal dumps in West Yorkshire, Surrey and Kent will be cleared up using taxpayer money, Andy Burnham has announced, as he promised a new drive to tackle toxic waste.
Ministers have identified dumps in Bradford, Runnymede and the Isle of Sheppey, which collectively contain about 22,000 tonnes of illegal waste, to be cleared in the next phase of the government’s national clear-up effort.
Meanwhile, fines will be raised for rogue dumpers, and AI-powered drones will be used to detect illegal activity while it happens, as the government looks to prioritise prevention alongside clean-up efforts.
Burnham said in a statement:
These toxic dumps have blighted communities for too long. I said we would clean them up – and that’s exactly what we’re announcing today.
He added:
These mountains of rubbish have been a clear sign to communities that politics hasn’t been working for them or their area.
This government is going to tackle the issues that have been ignored by Westminster for too long and bring back hope.
Hundreds of illegal waste sites have been reported across England, with a BBC investigation recently uncovering 11 “supersites” that contain more than 20,000 tonnes of rubbish.
One of the country’s most notorious sites is in Burnham’s own constituency of Makerfield, where a rotting, rat-infested mountain of waste has remained for more than 20 months. The site was identified for clean-up in March alongside two others, but locals say they have seen little improvement in the site since then.
During the byelection campaign, which Burnham won earlier this year, voters in the area told the Guardian they would vote for him specifically to get rid of that one site.
Read the full story here:
In other developments:
Andy Burnham has said government money alone may not be enough to get rough sleepers off the streets by Christmas, as he issued a “rallying call” for councils, charities and communities to help solve the problem. Speaking on a visit to the north-east of England, he said he felt “very passionately” about tackling homelessness and wanted the wider society to play a part in wiping it out.
Burnham is “too chicken” to approve the controversial Jackdaw and Rosebank oil and gasfields, the Tories have claimed. Production had been approved by the previous Conservative government, but those decisions were quashed after a legal challenge by Greenpeace, leaving Labour ministers to decide whether drilling should go ahead.
Labour could lose dozens of seats to the Green party if the government allows new drilling in the North Sea, according to internal research shared with the Guardian. Green party analysis suggests up to 50 Labour MPs – including key Andy Burnham ally Louise Haigh – could lose their seats at the next election if the government fails to make urgent climate action a priority or allows new drilling for oil and gas in the North Sea.
The Tories believe they can cut energy bills by £540 a year for the next two decades by prioritising cheap energy over net zero. Speaking in London, the shadow energy secretary Claire Coutinho said, when she was a minister, civil servants had been unable to prove to her that wind and solar energy was cheaper than fossil fuels.
Burnham has warned of the dangers of open-water swimming as he called the deaths of a mother, father and their teenage daughter who got into difficulty in water off Sussex “a terrible family tragedy”. The prime minister expressed his sympathies as a young girl from the same family remained in a critical condition in hospital.
