Chris Smyth

Ministers have outlined their overhaul of planning rules, including new powers to build on the green belt and penalties for developers who don’t build quickly

Council tax could be levied on unbuilt developments as ministers try to reach Sir Keir Starmer’s target of 1.5 million new homes

Government apologises for historical ‘maladministration’ but rejects pleas to compensate women born in the 1950s over an increase to the state pension age

Labour MPs try to force vote on payouts worth up to £10bn as parliamentary ombudsman criticises ministers for rejecting settlement

Labour says councils are paying inflated and doggedly contested prices to deliver homes

The prime minister insists he would not have done anything differently in his first five months in office, including imposing inheritance tax on farms

Andrew Bailey downgrades growth forecasts and says businesses are cutting costs and raising prices after Rachel Reeves’s raid on employers’ NI

The former prime minister’s think tank has advised the government to take a harder line in order to improve school outcomes

The prime minister used his first honours list to bolster his party’s strength in the upper chamber

The former architect of New Labour has been appointed ambassador to the US — despite having described the president as a ‘white nationalist and racist’