Minister: UK needs ‘cool, clear thinking’ over threat of Trump’s ‘reciprocal’ tariffs
The UK needs “cool, clear thinking” over the threat of new trade tariffs being imposed by the Donald Trump administration in the US, science secretary Peter Kyle.
PA Media reports that appearing on Sky News, he was asked if Britain should be worried about the US President’s latest threat to impose tariffs as a retaliation for charging VAT on US goods.
He said:
The first thing to reassure people is that we need a government with cool, clear thinking at times like this, and this is what you have with this Government.
We will assess any changes and challenges that come down the line from any part of the global economy, and we will act appropriately in the best interest of Britain.
The second thing to say is that whatever the circumstances globally, you’ve got to get the foundations right for running our domestic economy. That’s why we fixed some of the challenges we inherited from the previous government.
Asked whether the UK would expect to impose retaliatory measures, he added “What I said is that we will have a cool, clear look at what’s in the national interest, and we will respond accordingly, based on what we actually have in fact.”
On Thursday the US president announced he would introduce sweeping new “reciprocal”, pledging to roll out a “beautiful, simple system” of new US import duties that match those imposed by other countries. No new specific tariffs were announced. During the announcement the president specifically mentioned treating the European Union’s 20% VAT rate as an equivalent to being a tariff.
Callum Jones, writing in New York for the Guardian yesterday, noted that:
The administration has so far threatened more tariffs than it has introduced. Duties on Colombia were shelved when it agreed to accept military aircraft carrying deported immigrants; duties on Canada and Mexico have been repeatedly delayed; and modified duties on steel and aluminum, announced earlier this week, will not be enforced until next month.
An additional 10% tariff on goods from China is, for now, the only threatened trade attack actually enforced since Trump returned to the White House. On Friday, it emerged that a key component of this – removing the longstanding duty-free status of low-cost packages – had been delayed.
Key events
My colleague Jasper Jolly reports that Thames Water is to appeal to the UK’s competition regulator to be allowed to raise customers’ bills over the next five years even higher than previously granted. He writes:
Thames Water, which is on the verge of financial collapse, had wanted to raise bills by 59% over the next five years. It said on Friday morning its board had concluded that Ofwat’s final determination, of a 35% increase, would not allow the investment and improvement needed to improve its services.
Liberal Democrat MP Charlie Maynard argued that Thames Water should not be allowed to raise bills further because a 35% increase over five years was “more than enough,” adding “So much of the money is being spent on sky-high interest rates and advisory fees. Everyone’s focus now should be putting the company into special administration so its balance sheet can be reset and our bills spent on actually fixing the sewage network.”
Thames Water is currently loaded with about £19bn in debt, and was in the high court last week seeking an emergency £3bn loan. The company has paid out a significant amount of shareholder dividends since it was privatised, and in December 2024 was ordered to pay an £18.2m penalty after the water industry regulator confirmed the troubled utilities company had breached dividend rules. The water industry in England and Wales was privatised in 1989 by Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government.
Starmer tells Zelenskyy: UK is committed to Ukraine being ‘on an irreversible path to Nato’
Prime minister Keir Starmer has told Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy that the UK is committed to Ukraine being “on an irreversible path to Nato.”
The pair spoke this morning, ahead of the meetings at the Munich Security Conference where the sudden Trump administration push to end the war in Ukraine has already been criticised as appeasement towards Russian president Vladimir Putin.
In a read-out from the call, Downing Street said
The prime minister spoke to the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, this morning.
The prime minister began by reiterating the UK’s concrete support for Ukraine, for as long as it’s needed.
He was unequivocal that there could be no talks about Ukraine, without Ukraine.
Ukraine needed strong security guarantees, further lethal aid and a sovereign future, and it could count on the UK to step up, he added.
The prime minister reiterated the UK’s commitment to Ukraine being on an irreversible path to Nato, as agreed by allies at the Washington Summit last year.
Discussing the upcoming third anniversary of Ukraine’s courageous defence of its sovereignty in the face of Russia’s barbaric full-scale invasion, the leaders agreed that it would be an important moment to demonstrate international unity and support for Ukraine.
EU foreign policy chief and former Estonian prime minister, Kaja Kallas, has already been highly critical of the Trump administration’s opening gambit in negotiations, saying “Why are we giving them [Russia] everything that they want even before the negotiations have been started?” she said. “It’s appeasement. It has never worked.”
Earlier this week Donald Trump’s new defense secretary Pete Hegseth said “We must start by recognising that returning to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders is an unrealistic objective.”
My colleague Jakub Krupa is covering the Munich Security Conference live for the Guardian, where we are expecting to hear from Ursula von der Leyen, JD Vance and Zelenskyy among others. You can follow that here.
Kevin Hollinrake, MP for Thirsk and Malton, as well as talking about local election postponements, has been on social media complaining about the government’s plan for the renting sector.
Citing a Telegraph story using data from England which claims “Labour’s war on landlords triggers record wave of eviction claims” he said:
As we have said, Labour’s Renters Rights Bill is bad for tenants. The UK private rented sector is dominated by landlords who are private individuals (94%), and many will exit the market rather than risk suffering at the hands of a dodgy, difficult-to-remove tenant.
Labour says that its bill, which only applies to England, aims to “abolish section 21 evictions and move to a simpler tenancy structure”, “ensure possession grounds are fair to both parties, giving tenants more security, while ensuring landlords can recover their property when reasonable”, “provide stronger protections against backdoor eviction by ensuring tenants are able to appeal excessive above-market rents which are purely designed to force them out”, introduce a new private rented sector landlord ombudsman” and “apply the decent homes standard to the private rented sector” among other measures.
Badenoch launches formal bid to avoid nine areas of England postponing May local elections
Opposition Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has launched a formal bid to keep local elections scheduled for some areas of England this May, as her shadow business secretary warned cancelling them was “entirely wrong”.
As part of the Labour government’s regional devolution plans for England, elections have been delayed in nine areas while local authorities work on a new structure that would see current “two-tier” arrangements (where residents have service delivery split between a county council and a smaller local council) reorganised into single unitary authorities. Polls due on 1 May in these areas would instead take place next year.
Badenoch has laid an early day motion calling for the order to postpone the elections to be “annulled”.
Kevin Hollinrake, shadow secretary of state for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, told PA Media:
The Labour Government have massively rushed this imposition. There has been no attempt to gather consensus within two-tier areas. Local residents have not been consulted at any stage.
Council leaders have a “gun to their head” from the Labour government. These elections are not being “postponed” – they are being cancelled. This mass change is unprecedented and entirely wrong.
We are particularly concerned about the significant delay of up to three years before the new councils are in place, and existing councillors serving a seven-year term.
Deputy prime minister Angela Rayner announced the delay to elections across the nine areas earlier this month, when she told the Commons: “We’re not in the business of holding elections to bodies that won’t exist. This would be an expensive and irresponsible waste of taxpayers’ money.”
The changes affect elections scheduled in May for seven county councils – Essex, East Sussex, Hampshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, Surrey and West Sussex – and for two unitary councils – Thurrock and the Isle of Wight.
The reform will lead to the introduction of six elected mayors – in Cheshire and Warrington, Cumbria, Greater Essex, Hampshire and Solent, Norfolk and Suffolk, and Sussex and Brighton – along with merged county and district councils.
Polly Toynbee’s column today is about the assisted dying bill affecting England and Wales. You can read it here: The concerted attack on assisted dying won’t stop the public supporting this bill
Joanna Partridge
The UK’s competition watchdog has recommended sweeping changes for the baby formula industry, Joanna Partridge reports:
The CMA proposed five measures on Friday, which it says will improve outcomes for parents and could allow them to save £300 a year by switching to a lower-price brand.
Baby formula could be placed in standardised packaging in hospitals, while it said parents should be allowed to use gift vouchers and loyalty card points to buy formula milk, as part of efforts to combat soaring prices and lack of choice in the market.
However, the regulator has decided against recommending regulations such as a price cap on baby formula or a profit-margin cap, which the Greek government did last year with the aim of making products more affordable. The CMA said such a move would “involve significant risks”
You can read more here: UK watchdog proposes sweeping changes for baby formula industry
Minister accuses BBC of ‘totally inaccurate’ reporting over Rachel Reeves HBOS expenses investigation claim
Science secretary Peter Kyle was put under pressure during the morning media round over reports that the online CV of Rachel Reeves contained inaccuracies after another round of media speculation about the chancellor’s career prior to entering politics.
He told BBC Breakfast “What you’re talking about here is something that Rachel has already addressed, and it is someone on her team set up a LinkedIn profile, and they got the dates out by a few months actually.”
PA Media reports he added “But what you’ve seen with Rachel is a Chancellor who is an economist by training and by practice, and she’s brought that experience into Government, and judge her on actions and not just words.”
Yesterday the BBC reported that Reeves “Reeves and two colleagues were the subject of an expenses probe while she was a senior manager at Halifax Bank of Scotland (HBOS) in the late 2000s.”
Speaking to the BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Kyle suggested the BBC report was “totally inaccurate”, saying:
Unfortunately, the reporting has been totally inaccurate, and we heard yesterday that the person who was actually head of HR at that bank at that time says it’s untrue, said that she never, ever receive a file on Rachel Reeves.
And she says that before she left the bank, there was no investigation that passed her desk. And she’s also said if there was one, it would have passed her desk. I didn’t see any of that reporting included in the story I read yesterday evening on the BBC website.
The BBC’s online report now includes the line “We have not been able to establish what the final outcome of the investigation was. Indeed, it may not have concluded.”
Reeves is facing local media later today during a visit to the East Midlands.
Minister: UK needs ‘cool, clear thinking’ over threat of Trump’s ‘reciprocal’ tariffs
The UK needs “cool, clear thinking” over the threat of new trade tariffs being imposed by the Donald Trump administration in the US, science secretary Peter Kyle.
PA Media reports that appearing on Sky News, he was asked if Britain should be worried about the US President’s latest threat to impose tariffs as a retaliation for charging VAT on US goods.
He said:
The first thing to reassure people is that we need a government with cool, clear thinking at times like this, and this is what you have with this Government.
We will assess any changes and challenges that come down the line from any part of the global economy, and we will act appropriately in the best interest of Britain.
The second thing to say is that whatever the circumstances globally, you’ve got to get the foundations right for running our domestic economy. That’s why we fixed some of the challenges we inherited from the previous government.
Asked whether the UK would expect to impose retaliatory measures, he added “What I said is that we will have a cool, clear look at what’s in the national interest, and we will respond accordingly, based on what we actually have in fact.”
On Thursday the US president announced he would introduce sweeping new “reciprocal”, pledging to roll out a “beautiful, simple system” of new US import duties that match those imposed by other countries. No new specific tariffs were announced. During the announcement the president specifically mentioned treating the European Union’s 20% VAT rate as an equivalent to being a tariff.
Callum Jones, writing in New York for the Guardian yesterday, noted that:
The administration has so far threatened more tariffs than it has introduced. Duties on Colombia were shelved when it agreed to accept military aircraft carrying deported immigrants; duties on Canada and Mexico have been repeatedly delayed; and modified duties on steel and aluminum, announced earlier this week, will not be enforced until next month.
An additional 10% tariff on goods from China is, for now, the only threatened trade attack actually enforced since Trump returned to the White House. On Friday, it emerged that a key component of this – removing the longstanding duty-free status of low-cost packages – had been delayed.
Welcome and opening summary …
Good morning, welcome to our live UK politics coverage for Friday. Here are your headlines …
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The UK government will “wait and see” whether tariffs announced by Donald Trump “actually come to pass”, a senior minister said, with science secretary saying the UK needs “cool, clear thinking”
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Ministers are trying to “mission-wash” every item of spending in their departments, according to officials, before a spending review at which Rachel Reeves has demanded they justify every pound they receive
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Angela Rayner has insisted Labour’s flagship package of workers’ rights will be ringfenced from a bonfire of regulation being pursued by the government to reboot economic growth
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A minister has accused the BBC of “totally inaccurate” reporting over Reeves’ HBOS expenses investigation claim. Reeves is facing local media later today during a visit to the East Midlands
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The majority of academy leaders in England say the government’s new schools bill will not affect how they manage their schools, according to a new survey of multi-academy trust chief executives
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Foreign secretary David Lammy and defence secretary John Healey are in Germany for the Munich Security Conference. Jakub Krupa will be covering that for the Guardian on the Europe live blog
It is Martin Belam here with you today. You can reach me on martin.belam@theguardian.com if you spot typos, errors or omissions.
Article by:Source: Martin Belam
