Michael Gove today appeared to ditch a 2019 Tory general election manifesto commitment to build 300,000 new homes a year by the middle of the decade.
The Housing Secretary said he wanted to “ensure that more of the right homes are built in the right way, in the right places”.
But when pressed on whether the Government will hit its 300,000 a year target, Mr Gove suggested ministers are no longer committed to the number.
He said: “We are going to do everything we can but it is no kind of success simply to hit a target if the homes that are built are shoddy, in the wrong place, don’t have the infrastructure required and are not contributing to beautiful communities.”
The 2019 Conservative Party manifesto said the Tories would “continue our progress towards our target of 300,000 homes a year by the mid-2020s”.
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Boris Johnson was asked about Sir Keir Starmer's promise to resign if he is fined over "beergate".
The Prime Minister was asked if he believed Sir Keir's approach is the "right thing to do".
Mr Johnson dodged the question and said: "We are trying to move beyond all that and I think we are trying to focus on the issues that really matter, not least the war in Ukraine."
Boris Johnson was asked if the UK would be willing to send British troops to Sweden if the latter was attacked.
The Prime Minister refused to be drawn and said the UK would listen to what Sweden asked for.
He said: "What matters primarily is what Sweden decides to request. What we are saying is we are long standing friends of Sweden, we are massive partners and supporters of Sweden. We share the same ideals, the same values.
"Sometimes things should go without saying but they are worth saying. It is worth emphasising that if Sweden were attacked and looked to us for help and support then we would provide it.
"But it is up to Sweden to make the request and to spell out exactly what support is requested."
Boris Johnson was asked if he believed it is a wise move to risk a trade war with the EU over the Northern Ireland Protocol given other ongoing issues like Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the cost of living crisis.
Mr Johnson said: "The most important agreement is the 25 year old Belfast Good Friday Agreement, that is crucial for the stability of our country, of the UK, of Northern Ireland, and that means that things have got to command cross-community support.
"Plainly the Northern Ireland Protocol fails to do that and we need to sort it out."
Boris Johnson was asked exactly what the new security deal with Sweden would mean if the country was attacked by Russia.
The Prime Minister said the deal is "no more than a statement of the obvious" that the two countries would come to each other's aid if attacked.
Mr Johnson said: "Whether it is in the event of a disaster or a military attack, what we are saying today is that upon request from the other party we would come to the other party's assistance."
Boris Johnson said the new security deal done between Sweden and the UK (see the post below at 12.45) will bring the two nations "even closer together".
He said: "The war in Ukraine is forcing us all to make difficult decisions but sovereign nations must be free to make those nations without fear or influence or threat of retaliation.
"So I am very pleased today... to sign this mutual security assurances declaration. It is an agreement that brings our two countries even closer together, it will allow us to share more intelligence, bolster our military exercises and further our joint development of technology."
Boris Johnson is hosting a press conference alongside Magdalena Andersson, the Swedish PM, in Harpsund, Sweden.
The Prime Minister said after the Second World War Europe we had hoped "peace on our continent would endure".
But he said "Putin's bloodthirsty campaign" in Ukraine has "put an end to that hope".
Mr Johnson said Europe must "face a new reality" but it one allies will "face together".
The UK is today signing mutual security assurances with Sweden and Finland in a bid to increase cooperation and bolster northern Europe's defences in the face of renewed threats.
Boris Johnson has set out the UK's intention to support the two countries should either come under attack.
Mr Johnson signed the assurance with Sweden as he met with Magdalena Andersson, the Swedish PM, at Harpsund, his counterpart's country residence.
He will sign the deal with Finland this afternoon when he travels to Helsinki for further talks. The deals will result in greater intelligence sharing between the nations, more joint military training and increased joint deployments.
Mr Johnson also stressed the UK's "unwavering support" for Nato's "open door" policy to nations that want to join the alliance - something both Sweden and Finland are considering.
Liz Truss, the Foreign Secretary, and Maros Sefcovic, her EU counterpart, are due to speak tomorrow to discuss the Northern Ireland Protocol.
Downing Street rejected the suggestion that the phone call could represent a "last chance" to secure a breakthrough before the UK takes unilateral action.
The Prime Minister's Official Spokesman said: "I would never put a definitive timescale on that. I don’t think that would be helpful.
"But we certainly think we have been working at this for 16 months and we are at a position where the proposals put in front of us do not improve things, in fact they are a backwards step.”
The Prime Minister's Official Spokesman said the UK remains committed to talks with the EU on the Northern Ireland Protocol, dismissing suggestions the Government has "given up" on negotiations.
The spokesman said: “We absolutely haven’t given up. As I say, we are working extremely hard to find real solutions to this.
“But what is clear is that the EU’s proposals as they stand do not fix the underlying problems with the protocol. In some cases they make things worse.”
Downing Street has insisted it is still its "preference" to strike a negotiated settlement with the EU to overhaul the Northern Ireland Protocol amid reports the Government is preparing to act unilaterally to tear up post-Brexit border rules.
The Prime Minister's Official Spokesman said: “It remains a very serious situation. I think our preference still remains obviously to reach a negotiated solution but we have been doing this for 16 months.
“We have worked incredibly hard to try and make the protocol in its existing form work… but we still see played out the significant challenges faced by businesses both in Northern Ireland and elsewhere.
“The EU have confirmed they will never change their mandate despite the fact the protocol is presenting significant challenges in its current form and so we reserve the right to take further action if solutions cannot be found urgently.”
Boris Johnson convened a committee meeting of senior ministers last night to discuss the cost of living crisis.
Ministers have been told to come up with low-cost policy ideas to help alleviate pressure on household budgets.
The Prime Minister's Official Spokesman said: “You can expect there to be more work done off the back of that discussion.
"The Prime Minister urged ministers to go faster and be as creative as possible in ensuring the Government is doing absolutely everything on this important issue.”
The Government's new Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill, included in the Queen's Speech, will place an emphasis on building quality and attractive homes.
Asked if there will need to be a "trade off" between the overall number of homes being built and the quality, the Prime Minister's Official Spokesman said the Government believes housebuilding targets can still be hit while also building quality homes.
The spokesman said: “We don’t think there needs to be and that is one of the reasons why we have this Bill.
“We think that by removing some of the barriers to getting local communities involved in planning decisions and better access to them will remove some of those barriers that can clog up the system and slow progress.”
No 10 has insisted it is "making progress" towards its goal of building 300,000 new homes a year - but would not guarantee the target will be hit by the middle of the decade.
The Prime Minister's Official Spokesman said: "I think we are certainly making progress towards that target. You will know, I think we are at 244,000 per year currently.
“Some of the measures in this Bill [the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill] are designed to remove some of the barriers that can gum up planning applications and cause more resistance amongst local communities so certainly we want to go further in that ambition.”
Downing Street has insisted it has not dropped a commitment to build 300,000 new homes a year by the middle of the decade.
Michael Gove, the Housing Secretary, suggested this morning that the Government was no longer committed to the 2019 Tory general election manifesto pledge (see the post below at 10.08).
But asked if the 300,000 figure had been ditched, the Prime Minister's Official Spokesman said: "No. Our target to deliver 300,000 homes a year by the mid-2020s is central to our levelling up mission.
“But as you’ll have heard the Levelling Up Secretary say, those homes need to be good quality, they need to be well-designed and come with the infrastructure that new development needs.”
The Prime Minister's Official Spokesman has just been answering questions from lobby journalists.
I will guide you through the key lines.
Boris Johnson has been ridiculed after his TikTok debut, in which he warned viewers they "won't necessarily catch me dancing on here!".
The Prime Minister’s video appeared as the first clip on the new @10downingstreet account on Tuesday, racking up more than half a million views and tens of thousands of followers within hours.
However, the public were less than warm with their reception for the PM, with the comments flooded with calls for him to "resign".
You can read the full story here.
Michelle O'Neill, Sinn Fein vice president, said it would be unacceptable for the DUP to block the election of a new Speaker of the Northern Ireland Assembly after Sir Jeffrey Donaldson's comments earlier this morning (see the post below at 11.01).
Ms O'Neill said: "What we need to see is the positions filled – First Minister, Deputy First Minister, all the ministerial positions filled, and let’s get down to doing business.
“I don’t think it is good enough. It is not good enough for the people here that the DUP is holding society to ransom, punishing society, preventing the establishment of a Speaker and an Executive to actually respond to the things people are worried about. I don’t think it is acceptable the position Jeffrey Donaldson has articulated today.”
Sir Jeffrey Donaldson has left open the possibility that the DUP will block the election of a new Speaker when the Stormont Assembly meets on Friday.
The DUP leader said his party was yet to make a decision on whether to vote to elect a new Speaker when MLAs meet in the chamber in two days’ time.
The election of the new Speaker is the first item on the agenda for MLAs following the election and requires cross-community support from nationalist and unionist members.
The DUP is refusing to return to the power-sharing Executive until its demands to overhaul or scrap the Northern Ireland Protocol are resolved.
Sir Jeffrey told BBC Radio Ulster: “We will be there on Friday. Our members will be there to sign the roll. We will make a decision as to how we proceed."
Boris Johnson has now arrived in Stockholm, Sweden, where he is due to meet Magdalena Andersson, the Swedish Prime Minister, for talks.
They are expected to discuss Sweden's Nato ambitions in a move which will likely further inflame tensions with Russia.
Mr Johnson will then travel to Helsinki, Finland, for a similar round of talks with his Finnish counterpart.
Michael Gove channelled his inner Liverpudlian on Wednesday morning as he put on different accents to impersonate the Treasury and political pundits.
The Levelling Up Secretary shouted the words “calm down!” in a Scouse accent after adopting an American twang as he said “an emergency budget”, “major capital letters”, and “a big news story”.
You can read the full story here.
More from Michael Gove as he appeared to ditch the Government's 2019 pledge to build 300,000 new homes a year by the middle of the decade (see the post below at 10.08).
The Housing Secretary told the BBC: “Arithmetic is important but so is beauty, so is belonging, so is democracy and so is making sure that we are building communities.
“So yes, we definitely need more homes and we all know the reasons why but we also need homes that people can be proud of.”
The Tories promised in their 2019 general election manifesto to hit a target of 300,000 new homes a year by the middle of the decade.
Michael Gove, the Housing Secretary, today appeared to ditch the target.
Asked if the Government will hit the number, he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: “We are going to do everything we can in order to ensure that more of the right homes are built in the right way, in the right places.”
Mr Gove was told that the Tories had made a firm pledge to hit 300,000 a year. Asked if the Government will hit the target, he said: “We are going to do everything we can but it is no kind of success simply to hit a target if the homes that are built are shoddy, in the wrong place, don’t have the infrastructure required and are not contributing to beautiful communities.”
Sir Ed Davey, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, said the Government "seems to be prepared to contemplate a trade war" with the EU as he warned against tearing up parts of the Northern Ireland Protocol.
Sir Ed said a trade war at the same time as the ongoing cost of living crisis would be an "absolute disaster".
He added: “For Michael Gove and Boris Johnson and the rest of them to think that a trade war is the right way to deal with the cost of living crisis, an economic crisis, I don’t know what planet they’re living on.”
Labour responded to Boris Johnson's Queen's Speech yesterday by arguing the Government was still not doing enough to tackle the cost of living crisis. Steve Reed, the shadow justice secretary, today described the document as "really thin gruel".
He said: "I was genuinely shocked when we heard Prince Charles reading out the Queen’s Speech and then saw copies of it afterwards.
“We are in the middle of the biggest cost of living crisis in a generation, people can’t afford to make ends meet… and there was nothing in it to help.”
Steve Reed, Labour's shadow justice secretary, said the Government will make the UK a 'pariah' on the world stage if it unilaterally tears up the post-Brexit border rules in Northern Ireland which it agreed with the EU.
He told Sky News: “If you sign an international treaty, if two countries in the world sign an international treaty and one of them rips it up, that state becomes a pariah.
“Why would anyone else on the planet believe a word that state said?”
Labour has warned Boris Johnson that unilaterally tearing up parts of the Northern Ireland Protocol would damage the UK's international reputation.
Steve Reed, the shadow justice secretary, told Sky News: “If he does what he is threatening to do now, this is where the dangerous part of it comes in, if he rips it up, he is ripping up an international treaty.
“That will damage the UK’s reputation internationally but it will also damage the economy because he could end up by triggering a trade war with the European Union, our biggest trading partner on the planet which will add further misery to the economy which is already stalling.”
Steve Reed, Labour's shadow justice secretary, said tearing up the Northern Ireland Protocol would be a "really dangerous move" as he criticised Boris Johnson's handling of Brexit (see the post below at 08.41 for the background).
Mr Reed told Sky News: “This is a really dangerous move for the Government to want to make at this stage.
“We need to remember how the Northern Ireland Protocol came into being in the first place. Boris Johnson negotiated it, it was part of the Brexit deal that back in 2019 the Prime Minister came and said was an oven ready Brexit deal, it was a good deal for Britain, everything in it was sorted and resolved and we must vote it.”
He added: “Further down the line it turns out, as often happens with this Prime Minister, he had lied. He said there would be no border down the Irish Sea over his dead body… in fact there is a border down the Irish Sea because the protocol requires there to be one, the protocol that Boris Johnson signed.”
Michael Gove, the Levelling Up Secretary, said claims of a split between Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak over the need for an emergency Budget were “overinflated”.
Mr Gove told BBC Breakfast: “It is an example of some commentators chasing their own tails and trying to take a statement that is common-sensical, turning it into a ‘major’ capital letters ‘big news story’.
“When the Treasury quite rightly say ‘calm down’, people instead of recognising that they have overinflated the story in the first place then say ‘Oh, this is clearly a split’.
“The truth is the Prime Minister says ‘Government is working hard’ and the Treasury say ‘Yes we are and I’m afraid the Budget is going to be when we said it would be’. That becomes a story? No.”
Mr Gove used a variety of different accents to make his point. You can watch the clip here:
The UK and the EU have been discussing how to smooth the implementation of the Northern Ireland Protocol for months and months but a breakthrough has remained elusive.
There is increasing noise from the UK side that it is willing and preparing to take unilateral action to change the post-Brexit border rules - a move which would prompt legal action from the EU and potentially even a trade war between Britain and the bloc.
The key question is whether this is a negotiating tactic to heap pressure on Brussels (something we have seen at crunch points many times before in the Brexit process) or if the Government is genuinely at the end of its tether and is finally at the point of acting on its own.
Michael Gove's comments this morning (see the post below at 08.41) suggest that it could be the former - for now.
Liz Truss is due to speak to her EU counterpart Maros Sefcovic tomorrow and if the stalemate isn't broken then the UK Government may well decide it is time to go its own way.
Liz Truss is preparing to announce the UK will unilaterally change parts of the Northern Ireland Protocol as early as next week after telling Brussels its solutions to post-Brexit border problems would actually make the situation worse (you can read the full story here).
Michael Gove, the Levelling Up Secretary, insisted this morning the UK will continue to negotiate with the EU but stressed unilateral action could be taken, telling Sky News that "nothing is off the table".
He said: "Three things from the Brexit negotiation: One, Boris in the past has proved himself to be an expert negotiator and has secured what he has needed, when he has needed it.
“Secondly, part of that is being prepared to say ‘look, if I don’t get what I want in this negotiation I am prepared to walk away and to use alternative methods’.
“And then three, always, always, always make sure that you have some cards you keep close to your chest so that you don’t reveal your hand entirely to the other side.”
Christine Jardine, the Liberal Democrats' Treasury spokeswoman, has responded to Michael Gove ruling out holding an emergency Budget to deal with the cost of living crisis (see the post below at 08.11).
She said: "This is a complete shambles. "Millions of families and pensioners are struggling to get by. They need more help now before things get even worse in the autumn. Instead all we get from this Conservative government is chaos and confusion.
"An emergency Budget is needed now to cut taxes for ordinary families while taxing the super profits of oil and gas companies. That would be the fair and right thing to do."
Michael Gove, the Levelling Up Secretary, said ministers will do “everything that we can” to help families on the cost of living.
He told Sky News that ministers are reviewing “every policy lever at our disposal” to find ways of helping.
“We are always in every way looking to see what we can do to help citizens,” he said.
Opposition MPs have demanded an emergency Budget to tackle the cost of living crisis but Michael Gove ruled it out and simply pointed to the Government's ongoing work on the subject.
Ministers have been tasked with coming up with ideas in their respective departments which could alleviate pressure on household finances, with the emphasis on policies which will not cost the Treasury a lot of money.
Mr Gove told Sky News: "So the Prime Minister is right, we will be saying more and doing more in order to help people with the cost of living challenge that we face at the moment. But that doesn’t amount to an emergency Budget, it is part of the work of government.
“So last night the Prime Minister convened a group of ministers, we had all done work on some of the things that we could do to help. Those policy initiatives will be announced by individual departments in due course as they are worked up.”
Michael Gove has ruled out holding an emergency Budget to tackle the cost of living crisis after Boris Johnson set hares running on the subject yesterday afternoon.
Mr Johnson said he would be "saying more" about the Government's response to the cost of living crisis "in the days to come" in comments which sparked speculation of a potential new major intervention. The Treasury then poured cold water on the idea of holding an emergency Budget.
The Levelling Up Secretary sought to clarify the situation this morning. Asked who was right - Mr Johnson or the Treasury - Mr Gove told Sky News: "They are both right and no, there won’t be an emergency Budget.
“The key thing is it is sometimes the case… that words from a prime minister or a minister are overinterpreted."
Good morning and welcome to today's politics live blog.
There is a busy day ahead in Westminster as MPs continue the debate on the Queen's Speech.
Meanwhile, Boris Johnson is expected to fly to Finland and Sweden to discuss the countries' ambitions to join Nato.
I will guide you through the key developments.
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