Rachel Reeves says new government has inherited ‘worst set of circumstances since second world war’ – as it happened

• Reeves has announced a series of measures to relax planning laws, claiming she has done “more to unblock the planning system in the past 72 hours than the last government did in 14 years”. (See 12.44pm.)

Adrian Ramsay, the Green party’s co-leader, has defended his decision to call for a pause in plans to build pylons in his Waveney Valley constituency in Suffolk to carry energy from offshore wind pylons to other parts of the country.

In an interview with Radio 4’s PM programme, Ramsay said he wanted to see a proper options assessment to assess how the windfarms could be connected to the grid.

When it was put to him that, as a Green MP, he could not oppose offshore wind being taken to where the energy was needed, by the most cost-effective method, Ramsay said he had a background working in renewable energy. He would be arguing for more focus on renewables, he said. “But we’ve got to connect it in the right way,” he said. He said an offshore grid should be considered.

Asked if he could say he would not oppose the pylons plan if a proper appraisal showed that was the cheapest and most effective option, Ramsay said he did not think a proper options assessment had been carried out.

Evan Davis, the presenter, put it to Ramsay that he was ducking the question. In response, Ramsay said he wanted a proper options assessment. He claimed time was available for this.

More than 400,000 people may have been prevented from voting in the general election because they lacked the necessary ID, with those from minority ethnic communities more than twice as likely to have experienced this, polling has suggested. Peter Walker has the story.

The Conservative party is claiming that Rachel Reeves’s speech this morning implies tax rises are on their way. In response to the passage in the speech where the chancellor said she had commissioned a Treasury review of the “spending inheritance” left by the previous government (see 10.49am), a Tory spokesperson said:

Rachel Reeves herself said you don’t need to win an election to find out the state of the public finances, admitting that with the OBR, there is already detailed public scrutiny of the country’s finances.

We warned that Labour would attempt this ruse as a cause to raid pensions and raise taxes. It is now clear that is coming to pass, and the British people will pay the price.

The spokesperson pointed out that, in an interview during the election campaigin, Reeves told the Financial Times she did not need to wait until taking office to know what the state of the public finances were like. She said:

We’ve got the OBR now. We know things are in a pretty bad state. You don’t need to win an election to find that out.

Tom Clark from Prospect has an explanation for the apparent contradiction.

Before election Reeves said in a world where OBR produced tax & borrowing numbers she couldn’t “open the books” & pretend to find they were worse than feared

But OBR’s work on spending is circumscribed. HMT officials will now review this & duly find outlook “worse than feared”

Education secretary Bridget Phillipson tells teachers she wants ‘reset’ in their relationship with central government

Sally Weale

Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, has released an open letter to teachers and others in the education workforce saying she wants a “reset” in their relations with central government.

In response, the teaching union, the National Education Union (NEU), has urged to address the issue of the 2024/5 teachers’ pay offer which is still outstanding.

NEU members took part in a series of national strikes over pay last year, which were called off when the government made an improved offer of 6.5%. The leadership has warned the new administration that teachers in England and Wales could go on strike again if their demands for a fully funded, above-inflation pay rise are not met.

Daniel Kebede, the NEU general secretary, said:

We are looking forward to starting a journey of renewal with government, and to meeting Bridget Phillipson formally in her new role as education secretary.

The pay issue is on her desk. It was a complete abdication of [former education secretary] Gillian Keegan’s duty not to publish the school teachers review body report [which makes pay recommendations]. We need to know what teachers are being offered this year, and head teachers must be able to plan budgets.

The teacher recruitment and retention crisis is deep and severe. Workload is an enormous challenge too – teaching is simply not compatible with family life any more.

The NEU will be asking the new secretary of state to establish an independent commission into recruitment and retention that could make recommendations to restore the profession over the course of this parliament.

In her open letter to teachers, Phillipson said:

The scar of child poverty, severe financial pressures squeezing all your budgets, high workload, climbing vacancy rates, strain on care, mental health and SEND services, among many other issues, have made your jobs increasingly difficult.

This is a tough inheritance – none of these have quick and easy solutions but I will work with you and for you to find practical ways forward.

Helena Horton

Energy secretary Ed Miliband has written to his departmental staff, outlining Labour’s energy strategy for the years ahead.

Cutting bills features heavily in the note he wrote to colleagues in the Department for energy security and net zero (Desnz). Miliband said:

The reason I’m so excited to have been appointed to this role is because it speaks directly to the twin passions that continue to motivate me. First, resolving the economic inequality that scars the country, and second tackling the climate crisis that imperils our world.

He added that the department is at the “heart of the government’s agenda” and this rings true; publicly owned energy company GB energy is one of the main policies campaigned on during the general election campaign, and one of the government’s first actions was ending the onshore wind ban.

Miliband said:

Families and businesses across the country are still struggling with energy bills that are too high and are expected to rise again in the autumn. In an unstable world, the only way to guarantee our energy security and cut bills permanently is to speed up the transition away from fossil fuels and towards homegrown clean energy.

He also laid out his priorities for the department, which are: “delivering our mission to boost energy independence and cutting bills through clean power by 2030; taking back control of our energy with Great British Energy; upgrading Britain’s homes and cutting fuel poverty through our warm homes plan; standing up for consumers by reforming our energy system; creating good jobs in Britain’s industrial heartlands, including a just transition for the industries based in the North Sea; and leading on international climate action, based on our domestic achievements.”

Miilband added that he was Labour’s energy secretary from 2008-10, so helming Desnz “feels like coming home”.

The Centre for Policy Studies is not the only rightwing, free market thinktank that has welcomed Rachel Reeves’ speech. (See 1.38pm.) The Institute for Economic Affairs, which was Liz Truss’ favourite thinktank, is also enthused by the plan to ease planning restrictions (although it would like Reeves to go further). It has released a statement saying:

Rachel Reeves is right to emphasise the importance of growth in tackling Britain’s challenges. Everything from funding public services to a higher quality of life is possible with more growth.

Undoubtedly, the most exciting part of the agenda is the government’s immediate plans to reform the planning system, including restoring housing targets, cutting red tape for major projects and ending the de facto ban on the on-shore wind. The emphasis on using powers to promote growth could unlock major opportunities. But this must be the floor, not the ceiling, of the government’s ambitions. Far more reform will necessary to be done to solve the housing crisis.

And the Adam Smith Institute also says Reeves is heading in the right direction.

It has been harder to find reaction to the speech from leftwing thinktanks. But the New Economics Foundation has issued a statement criticising Reeves’ decision to rule out raising money for the Treasury by cutting interest payments paid to banks that hold money with the Bank of England (see 11.05am). Hannah Peaker, director of policy at the NEF, said:

If we want to see decent growth again, our new government can’t be afraid to spend. A new government has plenty of ways to raise money, from borrowing responsibly to taxing the wealthiest to scrapping stealth subsidies to banks.

Remaining wedded to outdated and arbitrary fiscal rules will hold our economy back. Our fiscal rules aren’t an accurate measure of how much a government can responsibly borrow — and the chancellor could choose to replace them with the wave of a pen.

Peter Walker

The Greens have celebrated their election haul of four MPs with a joint photoshoot opposite parliament, promising to put pressure on Labour in areas including the environment, housing and wealth taxes.

Carla Denyer, Adrian Ramsay, Siân Berry and Ellie Chowns hugged each other in delight as they arrived on College Green, having not seen each before the election, which saw the party win handsomely in all of the seats they had been targeting.

Berry had been the favourite to retake the Greens’ sole previous seat of Brighton Pavilion, held by the now-departed Caroline Lucas since 2010, while Denyer, one of the co-leaders, had been tipped to win in the similarly urban-bohemian enclave of Bristol Central, where she ousted Labour’s Thangam Debbonaire.

But the party also won two more rural seats against primarily Conservative opposition: Ramsay, the other co-leader, in Waveney Valley, which straddles the Norfolk-Suffolk border, and Chowns in North Herefordshire.

Speaking to the Guardian after the photos, Denyer said winning all four seats had been seen as possible, but “it certainly wasn’t guaranteed”. She said: “Based on both polling and our own door knocking data, it was looking pretty close, right up to the last minute.”

One impact of moving from one to four MPs is that the Greens will, for the first time, need a party whip, Denyer said.

The Green party is a bit different in that we don’t whip our members on how they vote. But we still need that role to do inter-party negotiations about who gets to sit on which committee. So having a discussion about who gets that role is one of the things on the to-do list for this week, alongside getting a password to get how to connect to the wifi and all that normal first day at work stuff.

Asked what areas she hoped to pressure the Labour government on, Denyer said for her this included the climate, housing – “a massive issue”, she said, in her constituency – and better funding for public services, such as introducing wealth-based taxes, ruled out by Labour. She said:

It’s been disappointing to see Rachel Reeves already today repeating the, ‘There’s no magic money tree’ line when Labour have completely refused to consider ways that they could raise funds that would allow us to properly fund our public services.