Politics latest: Budget a 'choice between investment or decline', minister says; Reform MP calls slavery reparations 'absurd' (2025)

The chancellor will not unveil any new freeports in the budget on Wednesday despite Downing Street saying last Friday that the UK planned to build five more of the tax-free sites, government officials have admitted.

As first reported by the Financial Times (FT), Rachel Reeves will instead announce only "next steps" on five existing freeports, which will receive official clearance to have custom sites within their boundaries.

Freeports are special areas that have been created by government to boost investment into parts of the country that have historically missed out.

There are currently 12 in the UK - eight in England and two each in Scotland and Wales, which were a flagship economic policy of the last Tory government.

According to the FT, the announcement of five new ones caused bafflement among port executives, Whitehall officials and local mayors who had no warning.

Sky News understands that confusion may have arisen over the five new custom sites within the freeports.

The custom sites allow buinesses to benefit from customs and tax reliefs, but only seven are operational within the 12 freeport zones.

Reeves is expected to confirm that five others are now ready to open their customs facilities.

New CCTV footage shows Labour MP Mike Amesbury punching a man in the street.

The new video,obtained by MailOnline, shows the MP for Runcorn and Helsby punching a man, who fell to the floor, before then hitting him repeatedly.

It came after earlier footage,which circulated on social media on Saturday, showed Mr Amesbury shouting at a man, who was lying on the floor, saying, "you won't ever threaten me again".

In a statement yesterday, Mr Amesbury said he felt "threatened on the street following an evening out with friends" - and added he "contacted Cheshire Police myself to report what happened during this incident".

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As we have just reported (see post 13.27), Robert Jenrick has hit out at Ms Badenoch for suggesting she is a better fit to be Conservative leader because she has "never been sacked" amid a "whiff of impropriety".

She was referring to Mr Jenrick's role in a planning row when he was housing secretary in 2020, but he hit back today, saying she had reduced the contest to "personal attacks and insults".

Asked about her remarks, made to The Telegraph newspaper, Ms Badenoch said she was "asked a question" by the newspaper "and I answered it".

Speaking to GB News' Camilla Tominey show, she said: "The public don't trust Conservatives any more. This is not a general election. This is not about how many policies and what the new manifesto can be. It's about what kind of person do the party members want? And I am talking about me."

She described herself as someone who "has conviction" and isn't saying "anything new now just because it's a leadership contest".

"I'm somebody who's been portraying those values for a very long time. And I also say that given the public don't trust us, you want somebody who hasn't been sacked, who hasn't had any of those sorts of issues. And that is the difference between us."

A row between the final two Tory leadership contenders has heated up after Kemi Badenoch appeared to take a swipe at Robert Jenrick's record.

In an interview with the Telegraph, former business secretary Ms Badenoch said she has "never been sacked" amid a "whiff of impropriety".

She said: "Integrity matters … with me you'd have a leader where there's no scandal. I was never sacked for anything, I didn’t have to resign in disgrace or, you know, because there was a whiff of impropriety."

The Telegraph said Ms Badenoch was referring to Mr Jenrick's involvement in a planning dispute when he was housing secretary in 2020. He faced calls to resign and was later sacked after he fast-tracked planning permission for a £1bn scheme in east London two weeks before the property developer Richard Desmond donated £12,000 to the Conservative party.

The pair had sat next to each other at a fund-raising dinner, at which Mr Desmond showed the minister a video of the development on his mobile phone.

It was hugely controversial because Mr Jenrick's decision, later overturned, saved the tycoon £45m in a local tax on property developments in the borough of Tower Hamlets.

Asked about Ms Badenoch's comments, Mr Jenrick told GB News' Camilla Tominey show that he "will never be ashamed of trying to get homes built in this country".

He said he is"proud" of the way the contest has been conducted, naming all the other contenders bar Ms Badenoch as having "worked together as a team".

"We've debated ideas and policies. It is a great shame that Kemi has chosen at this last minute to sully that. To trade personal attacks and insults.

"If Kemi does this to Conservative colleagues, this will be the death of the Conservative Party. I want to end the drama.

"You cannot claim to be a unity candidate and go making ad hominem attacks on Conservative colleagues."

The daughter of murdered MP Sir David Amess said he was "catastrophically" failed by the government's Prevent programme, as she called for a full inquest into his death.

The veteran MP, 69, was stabbed to death by Ali Harbi Ali, then aged 26, at Belfairs Methodist Church in Leigh-on-Sea in Essex in October 2021.

Katie Amess, 39, said she was told Ali had been reported to Prevent in 2014, but after one meeting his case was not followed up by the anti-radicalisation programme "due to an admin error".

She told the Sunday Times: "He was reported. People were trying to help us, and so why was he allowed to just go on and do whatever he wanted for seven years?

"What happened to my dad should not have been an admin error."

Ms Amess, an actress who lives in West Hollywood in the United States, said the pain of his death was "unbearable" and "unspeakable".

She said there had never been a "full public examination into the events leading up to his death".

Chris Philp has become the latest Tory to accuse Labour of lying to the British public to get elected.

As we reported earlier (see post 10.46) shadow science secretary Andrew Griffith claimed the government is behaving like a "dodgy hire car firm" over their budget plans.

It has been speculated that Labour will raise the employer element of national insurance, despite a pledge not to raise national insurance (NI) in the manifesto.

Labour have said the promise only ever referred to the working element of NI, and their manifesto made clear tax rises would not apply to "working people" - leaving the door open for other forms of revenue raisers.

Mr Philp told Sky News: "The story of this budget is going to be one of broken promises, and the fact that the Labour Party misled the British public.

"They lied to the British public during the election campaign. They said they wouldn't increase national insurance and it looks like they plan to do that."

Chris Philp, shadow Leader of the House of Commons, has said it is too late to change the Tory leadership rules so a new boss is in place to respond to Wednesday's budget.

This is something the likes of Robert Jenrick, in the final two with Kemi Badenoch, has complained about.

The final result of the contest will be announced on Saturday 2 November, a few days after the budget, following a lengthy race that some Tories felt was needed in light of the scale of the general election defeat.

Asked if the timing of the race is a shame, Mr Philp told Sky News "that's a fair question...and there are different views on that".

"But they're not going to change the rules now and it's going to be Rishi Sunak who replies, it'll be the last significant thing he does as a conservative leader".

He added that the outgoing Tory leader has "got huge experience, as chancellor and prime minister. So I'm sure he will do a very good job".

The BBC's Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme has also heard from shadow science secretary Andrew Griffith.

He said Labour "essentially lie to the British people" in terms of their plans, and compared the party's behaviour to the "worst form of dodgy car hire firm".

"Already after 110 days, I think people are seeing that this government came in on a false prospectus that things would be easy.

"They essentially lie to the British people in terms of their plans, not to increase national insurance... not to change the fiscal rules".

The government has said their manifesto pledge not to raise national insurance only ever applied to the working element - fuelling speculation employer NI will go up in the budget.

The chancellor has recently changed how debt is calculated to borrow more to invest, which critics say effectively changes the self-imposed fiscal rules she had previously described as non-negotiable.

Mr Griffith said there is a "crisis of trust in politics", and Labour are behaving "at the very least like the worst form of dodgy car hire firm, conjuring up small print that never existed".

Moving away from the budget, Ms Phillipson was asked on the BBC's Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg whether the proposal by the children's commissioner to ban smacking was a good idea.

She said she is "open-minded" to a ban on smacking but it is not going to be a priority.

"We are considering it, but this is not an area where we intend to bring forward legislation any time soon."

She said she wants to hear more about how a ban would work.

"I'm open-minded on it. It's not something we intend to legislate on, but I think we do need to look at how we keep children safe."

She said measures set out in the Children's Wellbeing Bill, which will be brought forward "by the end of the year," will address many of the issues around children's social care and safeguarding.

Earlier, we spoke to education secretary Bridget Phillipson about the budget.

She refused to comment on what would be in it, and stumbled over questions on whether a pledge not to raise taxes for working people was valid for the whole of this parliament. (It is, the government has since clarified - see post 9.30).

Ms Phillipson went onto face questions on the BBC's Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme, when she refused to be drawn on what the definition of a working person is.

She simply said that "when people look at their payslips, they will not see higher taxes."

Ms Phillipson refused to say whether a small business owner with an average net profit of around £13,000 would be considered a "working person" by the government.

"We can go through a range of different hypotheticals about who may or may not be captured by tax measures that may or may not happen in the Budget," she said.

"When Rachel is sat here next weekend you can ask her about the measures that she's announced.

"I know it's frustrating ahead of the Budget that I can talk about some areas, but not all of it."