Hospital waiting times in England fall to lowest level in five months - UK politics live

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Tory government planned on basis that council tax could rise by 5%, says minister

In the Commons Matthew Pennycook, the housing minister, is responding to the urgent question about council tax. (See 9.41am.)

He says there have been caps on the extent to which councils can raise council tax every year since 2012. And he says the current cap – 5% for councils which have social care responsibilities – were put in place by the last government. Any council that wants to go beyond the cap has to hold a referendum.

He says, when the last government was in office, the Office for Budget Responsibility assumed that councils would put up council tax by 5% in all years going ahead.

He also accuses the Conservatives of leaving local government finance in “a mess”.

Government urges live music industry to impose voluntary levy on tickets to help fund grassroots venues

Ministers are urging the live music industry to impose a voluntary levy on tickets to large concerts at stadiums and arenas to help fund grassroots venues.

They want the scheme to come into effect next year. They have said they will consider the effectiveness of this move before deciding if further measures are needed to help small venues.

As PA Media reports, some bands have already taken the step to donate a portion of ticket sales to help fund smaller venues. Enter Shikari gave £1 of every ticket sold for their 2024 arena tour to the Music Venue Trust charity as a gesture of support for the grassroots live music sector. Coldplay have also pledged to donate 10% of profits from their upcoming UK stadium tour to support smaller venues.

In a statement, Chris Bryant, the culture minister, said:

Grassroots music venues are one of the UK’s most valuable and yet undervalued cultural assets. They are where bands try out new material, where whole new genres are born, where musicians experiment and where audiences get to experience the raw power of live music.

These venues support thousands of jobs and are a vital part of our local communities. Without a flourishing grassroots music industry the rest of our music industry will wither.

It is crucial that we work together to support the grassroots including venues, festivals, artists and promoters. That is why I am urging the industry voluntarily to introduce a ticket levy on the biggest commercial players, to help ensure the health and future success of our entire live music industry for decades to come.

Prof Sir Stephen Powis, national medical director for NHS England, has put out a statement welcoming the waiting list reduction (see 9.53am), but saying the health service will be busier than ever before this winter. He says:

The NHS is going into winter under more pressure and busier than ever before, with another record month for A&E and ambulance services before we even start to see a further spike of pressure caused by colder weather and the spread of winter viruses.

While we saw 10% more A&E patients within four hours than last year despite the record demand, it is vital that people help us out by only going to A&E or calling 999 in a life-threatening emergency, using 111 for other conditions, and getting their Covid, flu and RSV vaccinations if eligible.

However, thanks to the efforts of our amazing staff, these figures also show how they are making use of the latest innovations, including surgical hubs, to bring down waiting lists and deliver 7% more treatments than the same month pre-pandemic, while also delivering more tests and checks than any other September.

While we continue to treat record numbers and deal with record demand, it is clear that is still much further to go to return performance to the levels patients should expect and we will continue to work with government on the 10 Year Health Plan to address the needs of patients.

Hospital waiting list figure for England down to 7.57m, lowest level for 5 months

The waiting list for routine hospital treatment in England has fallen to its lowest level for five months, PA Media reports. PA says:

An estimated 7.57 million treatments were waiting to be carried out at the end of September, relating to 6.34 million patients – down from 7.64 million treatments and 6.42 million patients at the end of August, NHS England said.

These are the lowest figures since April 2024.

The list hit a record high in September 2023, with 7.77 million treatments and 6.50 million patients.

There will be two urgent questions in the Commons after 10.30am, both tabled by Conservative MPs.

First, a local government minister will respond to a UQ from David Simmonds about the cap for council tax rises.

And then a health minister will respond to a UQ from Luke Evans about the impact of the employers’ national insurance increase on GPs, care homes and hospices.

Police service in London faces 'eye-watering cuts', says Met chief Mark Rowley

Good morning. We’re two weeks on from the budget, and from the government’s point of view it seems to have landed quite well. Nothing has unravelled, there have not been any U-turns (yet?) and Labour is confident that it has manoeuvred the Tories into a position where they are attacking the budget tax rises but backing the budget spending measures – an irrational position that is ultimately unsustainable.

But that does not mean budget-related problems for the government have gone away, as a quick look at today’s front pages will show.

The Times is splashing a story about on ongoing complaints from business about the impact of the national inheritance tax increase. It says “a post-budget survey of 185 businesses by the CBI found that 61 per cent of companies polled had formed a negative view of [Rachel] Reeves’s announcements, while 60 per cent said it had made Britain a less attractive place to invest.”

The Daily Mail is splashing on a story about how councils in England will be allowed to raise council tax by up to 5% next year without holding a referendum. This is exactly the same cap that has been in place since 2022, but a 5% rise would now be above inflation, and the Conservatives are suggesting the cap should be lower.

And Sir Mark Rowley, the Metropolitan police commissioner, has given an interview to the BBC saying there will be “eye-watering cuts” to the police in London because of a lack of government funding. It is not unusual for people running big public service organisations to complain about their budgets when they are negotiating with Whitehall for money, but Rowley’s comments are striking nevertheless. In an interview with Nick Robinson for his Political Thinking podcast Rowley said he was “deeply troubled” by the situation he was in. He explained:

This is not just about this year’s decisions, but it’s a cumulative effect of decisions over the last decade or so which have put us in a more and more precarious position.

Some of the things that successive commissioners and mayors have used to balance the books - like selling police stations and using reserves - all of those things have run out. So those are propped up the budget. Those props have gone.

The chancellor has been very clear - it’s a difficult public sector context. You add all those things together and you get a dramatic change in budgets, and of a scale that’s never going to be absorbed by efficiencies. And it’s going to require some pretty eye-watering cuts to the services we provide to London.

Rowley said he faced some “very, very difficult choices” and that these would become clear to the public “over the next few weeks”.

The government says it will increase spending on the police next year, but individual force budgets have not been decided yet. It wants to talk about pension funds instead. Reeves is delivering her Mansion House speech tonight and, as Kalyeena Makortoff reports, she is going to announce plans to merge local government retirement schemes into “megafunds”.

There is not much in the political diary for today, but no doubt the God of News will give us something to write about.

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Mark Rowley. Photograph: James Manning/PA