UK politics - live: Rishi Sunak set to face off Keir Starmer in first PMQs since infected blood scandal report

Police chiefs have been advised to scale back on arrests to ease prison overcrowding.

Forces are being told to consider cutting down on non-priority arrests.

According to The Times , internal documents from National Police Chiefs’ Council said “any planned operations where large numbers of arrests may take place” should be paused to ease pressures in the criminal justice system.

The news is likely to heap pressure on Rishi Sunak’s during today’s PMQs as the government has recently come under fire over a policy to free criminals from jail early and delays to court cases to tackle prison overcrowding.

Possible sanctions include an unlimited fine if ministers are found to have broken the law, Kate Devlin writes.

Rishi Sunak said the UK can expect “brighter days ahead” after rate of consumer prices index inflation fell to 2.3 per cent in April.

The eagerly-anticipated data published by the Office for National Statistics shows inflation is now at the lowest level since 2021.

Andrew Feinstein has launched his own campaign against the Labour leader to snatch the constituency of Holborn and St Pancras.

The independent candidate was an MP in Nelson Mandela’s government in South Africa.

Launching his fundraising campaign on GoFundMe, he said: “The UK needs to see the back of the corrupt and incompetent Conservative Government but Keir Starmer has shown that he cannot be trusted to lead a Labour Government that will reverse the austerity, threats to civil liberties and warmongering that are causing so much suffering here and abroad.”

Jonny Mercer said plans to allow veterans IDs at polling stations were blocked by No10 over fears it would “open the floodgates” to more students voting, Archie Mitchell reports.

The veterans minister complained he had tried “for months without success” to convince Downing Street to let veterans use their IDs to vote. But he said the prime minister’s special advisers blocked the plans over fears it would mean students could use their own ID cards too, according to The Times.

The newspaper obtained photos of Mr Mercer sitting barefoot on a train typing a memo bemoaning the voter ID rules and Mr Sunak’s Downing Street team.

Former service personnel were turned away from polling stations at the local elections earlier this month, including Adam Diver, 46, who served for 27 years and said he was left “gutted” when he was unable to vote.

Mr Mercer vowed to do all he can to ensure veterans IDs are accepted by the general election expected this autumn.

Jeremy Hunt has revealed there will be no limit to the amount of compensation payments given to victims of the contaminated blood scandal.

Speaking after the interest rates results, the chancellor said the government will pay what it takes to make up for the “appalling scandal”.

He adds: “We’re trying to do both as quickly as we can, and there are processes that you have to go through,” he says.

“All I would say is there is no block from the Treasury saying ‘slow this down because we don’t want to pay the money out’ - we want to get this out as quickly as we can.

“We haven’t put a limit on how much it costs, we want to follow the inquiry’s recommendations.”

The chancellor believes the Bank of England is confident the UK will move into interest rates cuts.

Although the economy has seen a drop in inflation, he has acknowledged hard-up Brits are still battling with high costs.

He says: “I think families will still be feeling quite bruised after the last couple of years, because although the inflation rate has gone down, prices are still higher than they were a year ago.”

The Prime Minister has addressed graduate visas a day after he bowed to cabinet pressure to scrap plans to reform the scheme.

Asked about this, he said: “I’m clear that the levels of legal migration into our country are too high, they place unsustainable pressure on our services, on local communities.

“That’s why I’ve taken decisive action to bring the numbers down. Now we’ve started to see the impact of those actions in the first few months of this year, the number of visas issued were down almost a quarter.

“My expectation is this will continue to decline throughout the rest of this year.”

Wylfa coastal site in Wales could become the UK’s third mega-nuclear power station.

Ministers are beginning talks with international energy firms with the aim to set up a gigawatt plant to provide enough clean power for six million homes for six decades.

The Wylfa project could compete in size with the one in Hinkley, Somerset and Sizewell in Suffolk.

But the plans come late, says Labour. The party has accused the Conservatives of “dither and delay” after Japanese giant Hitachi pulled out a previous project there in 2019 because of rising costs.

Labour’s shadow energy minister Alan Whitehead said: “We welcome the Government finally moving forward with a nuclear project identified by the last Labour government.

“But this should be the bare minimum – and celebrating a tentative step forward in 2024 on a project that should have been moving in 2010 tells you everything about this tired, snail’s-pace Government.”

The cross-party group has sent a letter to the foreign secretary “to do all it can to support the International Criminal Court”.

Signed by 105 and Lords from 11 parties, it states that “there is mounting evidence that Israel has committed clear and obvious violations of international law in Gaza and we strongly believe that those responsible must be held to account”.

It comes as the chief prosecutor of the ICC issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, defence minister Yoav Gallant and Hamas leaders Yehya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh.

But Rishi Sunak and David Cameron have expressed discontent over the warrants and said the move is “deeply unhelpful”.

Labour MPs Richard Burgon, who organised the letter alongside Imran Hussain, said: “At every stage, our government has failed to fulfil its moral duty to do everything it can to help save lives and prevent suffering in Gaza. It must not fail again.

“It must back the ICC in ensuring that there is no impunity for war crimes and it must stand up to those seeking to impede justice.”