UK politics: Burnham pauses early prisoner release scheme due to start in September – as it happened

The Guardian’s politics liveblog is coming to a close. Here’s a round-up of today’s key events:

• New PM Andy Burnham has paused the early prisoner release scheme that was due to begin in September. “Keeping the public safe will always be my top priority. I am working closely with the new Justice Secretary and have instructed my team to put a pause on the changes that were due to start in September. No prisoners will be let out under this policy until we have conducted an urgent review and done everything we can to minimise risk to the public,” he said.

• The pause comes as the mother of police officer Andrew Harper said the fact that two of his killers are being considered for early release “just feels like another letdown for Andrew”. PC Harper was 28 when he sustained fatal injuries while responding to a quad bike theft in Sulhamstead, Berkshire, in August 2019.

• Burnham will cut business rate bills for pubs, clubs and live music venues in England by 20% from next April. Burnham said the £100m package would be fully funded including through reviewing reliefs for businesses that do not make a positive contribution to communities, such as vape shops.

• Conservative deputy chairman and shadow crime and policing minister Matt Vickers has raised doubts on the financing of the 20% cut to business rates. Asked about the new policy, Vickers told GB News “This is the third unfunded spending commitment in three days”.

• Kemi Badenoch accused Andy Burnham of being too unambitious, using her first major intervention since he became prime minister to say he is stuck with “mayor of Manchester ideas”. At a speech in London, the Conservative leader said Burnham policies such as cheaper bus fares and removing VAT from electricity bills showed a lack of vision.

The future of Greenland’s sovereignty remains a matter for the Arctic territory and Denmark, Andy Burnham has said, in a signal that he will continue Keir Starmer’s approach to threats from Donald Trump to annex the island.

New PM Burnham outlined his position on Greenland in his first call with his Danish counterpart Mette Frederiksen earlier today, PA reports.

Trump created a rift between America and its European Nato allies at the start of the year, when he suggested he wanted to take over Greenland, a semi-autonomous territory of Denmark. The US president last spoke of his desire for the US to own Greenland at the Nato summit earlier this month.

Giving a readout of Burnham’s call with the Danish PM, a Downing Street spokesperson said: “He reiterated the UK’s stance on Greenland and that its future should only be determined by the people of Greenland and Denmark.

Beyond Greenland, the leaders discussed immigration policy. “On migration, the Prime Minister noted that the UK has learnt a great deal from Denmark’s approach and welcomed the close co-operation between the two countries,” the readout said.

The call between Burnham and Frederiksen was one of several the prime minister held with world leaders on Thursday.

He also spoke with Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese, and “outlined his unwavering commitment” to the Aukus submarine programme.”

Burnham and Norwegian premier Jonas Gahr Store spoke about the strong defence relationship between Norway and the UK. Both countries are members of the Nato and Joint Expeditionary Force (Jef) alliances.

Domestic abuse commissioner Nicole Jacobs welcomed prime minister Andy Burnham’s decision to pause the early release scheme for prisoners that was due to start in September.

In a post on social media, she said: “I’m extremely pleased to see the prime minister take swift action to fully pause the early release scheme, which would have seen dangerous abusers released into the community without any protections in place for survivors.

“Ministers should never have underestimated the risk domestic abuse perpetrators pose to their victim.

“They know where they live, where they work and where their children go to school and they will stop at nothing to control, coerce and harm.

“It’s clear the prison capacity crisis is one the government needs to grip, but this should not come at the expense of victims’ safety.”

Grant Shapps was blocked from standing for the Tories because he failed leader Kemi Badenoch’s new selection process, according to PA.

Shapps held a string of Cabinet positions under four Tory prime ministers – including energy security and net zero secretary, transport secretary, home secretary and business secretary – and most recently served as defence minister under Rishi Sunak. He co-chaired the party ahead of its 2010 election victory and he was knighted in Sunak’s resignation honours list.

At a press conference earlier today, Badenoch said the Conservatives are “a very different party from the one that was removed from government in 2024”, after it emerged that Shapps was blocked as an MP candidate.

The former MP lost his Welwyn Hatfield seat to Labour’s Andrew Lewin in 2024.

The Tory leader declined to comment on his rejection, first reported by the Spectator, when asked about it at a central London press conference (see Peter Walker’s post from 11.54). But a report by PA said it understands Shapps failed Badenoch’s new selection process to become a prospective Tory candidate.

Earlier this month, Badenoch suggested Tories who either backed net zero targets or who opposed the UK leaving the European convention on human rights (ECHR) were “not serious” and no longer welcome in the party. Shapps, however, is not thought to disagree with either approach.

Ministers have been urged to free non-violent women from prisons instead of dangerous criminals, after the government paused the early release scheme.

Under the new Sentencing Act, set to come into force in September, some 6,000 criminals were set to be released under the early prison release scheme.

In the Lords on Thursday, Labour frontbencher Lord Katz insisted a “sophisticated response” to prison overcrowding is needed, as he was asked “what the hell do [the government] think they’re doing?”

Conservative former solicitor general Lord Garnier said:

There are 3,650 women in prison in England and Wales, and about 2,500 of those people – that’s to say, 70% of the women’s prison population – are in custody for non-violent offences.

If the government thinks it’s better to release violent criminals, child sex offenders, rather than that non-violent cohort of women in prison, and fails to take the opportunity to free up prison places there, by re-rolling those a woman’s prison into a prison for men, what the hell do they think they’re doing?

In his response, Lord Katz said:

It is a complex progression scheme to ensure that we are able to create the capacity that we need in our prison system.

“There aren’t a lot of easy options, but also there are more sophisticated responses to the kind of the very simplistic problem he posed,” he added.

The early release scheme pause comes after Burnham said that he would examine the “the whole of the policy” with the new justice secretary, Alex Norris.

Preparations has been underway for the release of up to 6,000 prisoners across England and Wales from 2 September.

Under the proposals, killers, rapists and sex offenders will be released early into the community and monitored by tags.

The mother of police officer Andrew Harper said on Thursday it was “another letdown” for her son that two of his killers were being considered for early release.

PC Harper was 28 when he sustained fatal injuries while responding to a quad bike theft in Sulhamstead, Berkshire, in August 2019.

Asked about how the family feel about the potential release, PC Harper’s mother Debbie Adlam told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:

It just feels like another letdown for Andrew, really. You know, when you look at the horrific way he was killed, we have to live with that, we have to know, you know, that we’ve still got to live a life.

We’ve got to do our best to do a life as best we can for him and in his name, really.

But alongside that, we live with this horrendous… it’s like a double life almost, the way we actually have to go on, because there’s obviously the loss, and then there’s trying to keep a normality about life.

Angela Rayner has defended accepting a nearly £17,000 severance payment when she resigned from government last year, after returning to cabinet as Andy Burnham’s housing secretary.

Rayner received the payment after resigning in September 2025 from her role as housing secretary, deputy prime minister, and deputy Labour party leader over a row about her tax affairs. HMRC has since cleared her of wrongdoing, and she returned to government on Monday to oversee housing once again.

In her first major broadcast interview since her return, Rayner defended not returning the £16,876 severance payment she received when she resigned. She told BBC Radio 5 Live:

No, my severance payment was given to me at the time. I’d worked in government for a period of time, and then I came out of government for just under a year, I think is the timetable, and I’ll be delivering in government again.

Asked about housebuilding targets, she said:

I’m not going to give you an exact figure today because it very much depends on things like section 106. It depends on where you get the start ups. But we’ve already made a start up through the right to buy receipts…

I’m not going to give you a, since 1952 or since 1963, what I am saying is we will deliver on what we said, but I’m also acknowledging that there’s a huge gulf between post-war and where we are today, which is exactly what you said. I am acknowledging that.

So I could say to you today, yes, we’re definitely going to do it. Of course, the bar is really low is what I’m saying. My aspire is to ramp it up.

Andy Burnham has paused the early prisoner release scheme that was due to begin in September.

In a statement, the new prime minsiter said:

Keeping the public safe will always be my top priority.

I am working closely with the new Justice Secretary and have instructed my team to put a pause on the changes that were due to start in September.

No prisoners will be let out under this policy until we have conducted an urgent review and done everything we can to minimise risk to the public.

Where changes are needed, we will not hesitate to make them.

New foreign secretary Ed Miliband was “wrong” to call Donald Trump a racist and misogynist in the past, the US president’s representative in the UK has said.

Warren Stephens said “hopefully his views have changed” since he labelled Trump a “groper” and a “racist” a decade ago, PA reported.

Washington’s top diplomat in London also said he and former energy secretary Miliband “disagree” on net zero, but vowed to work with him in his new role.

The White House was reported this week to be concerned about prime minister Andy Burnham’s decision to appoint Miliband to the Foreign Office job.

Miliband on Thursday emphasised that the UK and US are “the closest of allies” as he shared a photo of his meeting with Trump’s secretary of state Marco Rubio on the sidelines of a foreign ministers’ meeting in the Philippine capital.

In 2016, Miliband called Trump “a racist, misogynistic self-confessed groper” and subsequently said the American leader had “lowered the bar for idiocy”.

Asked about the remarks, Stephens told Sky News on Thursday: “He was wrong then.”

But, the ambassador said, “those were some time ago, I think, and hopefully his views have changed”.

The British army has been forced to cancel training for its troops in Kenya after the Kenyan government refused to ratify a bilateral defence agreement.

While the UK government wanted to renew the existing agreement, Kenyan lawmakers had sought changes to give local authorities greater powers to hold British soldiers accountable for any offences committed in the country.

According to the Kenyan news outlet the Daily Nation, the dispute centres on which cases Kenya will retain primary jurisdiction over, while the amount of money Britain pays Kenya to host the training camp has also been a sticking point.

The chair of the Kenyan national assembly’s defence, intelligence and foreign relations committee, Nelson Koech, said the two governments are “actively engaging to address these outstanding issues”.

As a result of the Kenyan government’s decision, a planned exercise involving the 1st Battalion the Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment, which was due to begin in September, has been cancelled.

A Ministry of Defence spokesperson said: “The UK highly values its relationship with Kenya, which is underpinned by mutual benefit, respect and cooperation. The UK-Kenya Defence Partnership is one of the great strengths of our relationship. Our joint training and operations with the Kenyan Defence Forces are keeping both Kenyan and British people safe.

“It is with regret that the necessary licences required to allow training to take place in Laikipia later this year have not been forthcoming. As a result, the planned training will now be conducted at an alternative location outside Kenya.”

Andy Burnham’s pledge to review early release plans has created “a sense of chaos” across the Prison Service, probation officers have said.

As Whitehall insiders confirmed the prime minister was examining possible exemptions to the law under which offenders will be freed, the Napo probation union said prison officials “do not know” how to respond.

Burnham said on Wednesday that he would examine the “the whole of the policy” with the new justice secretary, Alex Norris, amid preparations for the release of up to 6,000 prisoners across England and Wales from 2 September.

Under the proposals, killers, rapists and sex offenders will be released early into the community and monitored by tags.

The mother of police officer Andrew Harper said on Thursday it was “another letdown” for her son that two of his killers were being considered for early release.

Tania Bassett, Napo’s national officer, told the Guardian the union had asked prison managers whether all preparations for early release across England and Wales should continue but received no response.

Andy Burnham will hold his first meeting at No 10 North in Manchester on Friday, PA reports.

Burnham told the Hare pub in Harlow, Essex on Thursday that “the whole purpose of No 10 North is to put more power into every postcode in the land, including the postcodes of Harlow.”

“How do we get power out of Whitehall and Westminster, into the hands of people at a local level, so that they can make a difference and turn things around?”

In her first 48 hours as energy secretary, Miatta Fahnbulleh was left in no doubt about the thorny policy decision at the top of her in-tray. Protesters from Fossil Free London met her outside her new offices dressed as firefighters holding placards reading: “We’re already putting out fires, don’t start new ones.”

The MP for Peckham – a radical economist who is outspoken about the climate crisis – is a surprising choice as secretary of state for energy and net zero for those who believe the speculation in Westminster that Andy Burnham wants to approve new oil and gas drilling in the North Sea.

Protesters outside the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) on Wednesday were taking no chances on whether the rumours were correct, demanding in full voice that the new energy secretary scrap all new drilling.

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