The Conservative MP who is in charge of leadership contests in the party has said that it’s “crazy” to allow members to choose who wins when the party is in government.

As the Daily Telegraph reveals, Sir Graham Brady, chair of the backbench 1922 Committee, made the comment in a speech at Durham University last week.

Brady explained that, under the system set up by William Hague when he was party leader in 1988, MPs vote until they have whittled down the list of leadership candidates to the final two, and then party members elect on of those two candidates as leader. Previously the leader was just elected by MPS.

Brady went on:

I’m the first chairman of the ‘22 who has had to operate it while we’ve been in government … And so my view is that that was a mistake to introduce that rule.

I think it’s fine to have the party members voting on the leader when you’re in opposition. But in a parliamentary system where essentially you could only remain prime minister if you enjoyed the confidence of your party in parliament, it seems to me crazy that we now have different mechanisms … The Conservative members of parliament can get rid of the leader by voting no confidence, but then the leader is supplied by the party members.

Brady said that he would like to change the rules so that, when the Tories are in government, just MPs choose the leader. But he said this would “never happen” because the rule change would have to be approved by a two-thirds majority, and party members would never back it.

The Telegraph has posted a recording of Brady making this argument on X.

The Scottish Tories may be withdrawing their no confidence motion in Humza Yousaf, but Scottish Labour is not withdrawing its no confidence motion in the Scottish government as a whole, its leader, Anas Sarwar, has told LBC. This is from LBC’s Alan Zyncinksi.

NEW: The @ScottishLabour leader @AnasSarwar tells me they won’t be withdrawing their motion of no confidence in the Scottish Government. Also asked him what he makes of next potential @theSNP leaders John Swinney and Kate Forbes… “None of these people represent change”

Sarwar also said that he did not think either Kate Forbes or John Swinney, who are seen as the two favourites to replace Yousaf, would be able to deliver change.

Under Forbes, there would be “more chaos’, because some SNP colleagues would not support her, Sarwar said.

And, turning to Swinney, who is seen as the frontrunner, Sarwar said:

You have a man who’s been at the heart of the SNP government for the last 17 years, at the heart of SNP leadership for the last 14 years, he was the architect of the Bute House agreement, and we’ve seen the chaos that’s come from it, he was the worst education secretary in the history of the Scottish parliament, and he was the finance secretary that has broken local government finance, and you can see the consequences we’ve had from local community organisations and local communities in general right across the country.

The number of foreign care workers applying for a visa to come to the UK fell by a quarter in six months, PA Media reports. PA says:

Health and care visa applications covering 153,500 people were made from October 2023 to March 2024, comprising 40,800 main applicants and 112,700 dependants, provisional Home Office data shows.

This is down 25% from 205,800 people in the six months from April to September 2023, comprising 88,800 main applicants and 117,000 dependants, according to PA news agency analysis of the figures.

The data, published on Tuesday, also show the number of people per month included in health and care visa applications appears to have peaked in August 2023, at 41,600 (18,300 main applicants and 23,300 dependants).

Since then, the total has been on a broad downwards trend and has fallen every month in a row since November 2023.

The figures cover the period prior to a raft of restrictions being introduced by the government in a bid to cut the number of people legally arriving in Britain.

More changes to immigration rules were gradually introduced from last month, with a ban on foreign care workers bringing their families with them to the UK, and a requirement for care providers to register with the Care Quality Commission if they are sponsoring migrants coming into force on March 11.

The Home Office has also announced that the number of dependants accompanying people with student visas was down 80% in January to March 2024 compared to the same period in 2023. This reflects the fact that the government has now banned most international students from getting visas allowing them bring their dependants with them.

The Scottish Conservatives are withdrawing the motion of no confidence in Humza Yousaf that they tabled last week. They say there is no need to put it a vote because Yousaf is standing down as first minister.

Douglas Ross, the Scottish Conservatives’ leader, said:

I’m delighted that the Scottish Conservative motion of no confidence in Humza Yousaf achieved its purpose by forcing him to resign.

While, on a personal level, I wish him well for the future, he was a disaster as first Minister and it’s in Scotland’s interests that he goes.

The next goal for my party is to see off this feuding, failing SNP government and switch the focus away from their independence obsession and on to the public’s real priorities – such as growing the economy and improving Scotland’s ailing public services.

As it’s job done in terms of Humza Yousaf, there’s no longer any need for us to press ahead with a debate on our no-confidence motion.

In his interview with ITV’s Good Morning Britain, Keir Starmer also defended Angela Rayner – and challenged broadcasters asking about her tax advice to question Rishi Sunak about his wife’s non-dom arrangments.

Starmer has repeatedly defended Rayner, the deputy Labour leader, who has been accused of dodging capital gains tax (CGT) she should have paid when, before she became an MP, she sold the council home she had previously brought. Rayner has said that she has had tax or legal advice saying she did not owe CGT. Starmer said his staff have seen this, but he has not personally.

When Richard Madeley, the presenter, said he could not understand why Starmer had not asked to see the advice himself, Starmer replied:

In the end the question we’re addressing here is where Angela Rayner was living 10 or 15 years ago and Angela has answered that question I don’t know how many times. The question at the end is quite a straightforward question, which is do you believe Angela Rayner about where she says she was living?

The answer to that question, for me, is yes. I don’t need the legal advice to tell me whether I believe Angela Rayner when she tells me where she was living.

Asked again if he was curious to read the legal advice, Starmer said he had given legal advice many times over the years, and legal advice was confidential.

When it was put to him that he did not want to review it in case it contained something problematic, he replied: “Not at all.” He went on:

If a member of my shadow cabinet tells me that they’re have to have an operation. I don’t ask to see the medical advice. I don’t ask for their medical notes.

When Madeley put it to Starmer that Rayner was under a police investigation, Starmer repeated his point about how he did not need to see legal advice to tell him to believe Rayner. Then he turned to the subject of Sunak’s finances.

I would also just gently say this. Rishi Sunak’s wife was a non-dom for many years. She has given it up now. I would be intrigued and curious to see the tax advice that Rishi Sunak and his family have had, because they have avoided I don’t know how many hundreds of thousands of pounds of tax … I would gently invite you, when Rishi Sunak is next on, to see whether you can get him to show you his tax advice.

When it was put to him that the Sunak’s were not under criminal investigation, Starmer did not challenge that, but he said they had avoided “a huge amount of tax”.

(Starmer was actually wrong about Sunak’s wife, Akshata Murty. After the revelation that she was a non-dom triggered a huge row in April 2022, Murty said in future she would pay UK tax on all her income. But, technically, she did not give up her non-dom status.)

Keir Starmer said his views on gender issues “start with biology” as he backed blocking trans women from female-only hospital wards and prisons in an interview with ITV’s Good Morning Britain, PA Media reports. PA says:

The Labour leader was speaking as the government proposed changes to England’s NHS constitution to give patients the right to request to be treated on single-sex wards, with transgender people placed in rooms on their own.

Starmer told the programme: “There’s a distinction between sex and gender. The Labour Party has championed women’s rights for a very long time.”

He has previously said that “99.9% of women” do not have a penis and in 2021 he said it was “not right” for Labour MP Rosie Duffield to state that “only women have a cervix”.

But asked about his response to Duffield’s argument, Starmer said: “Biologically, she of course is right about that.”

Asked if he would apologise to the Canterbury MP, Labour leader Starmer said: “I don’t want this to go back into this toxic place where everybody is divided.”

But he said: “Rosie Duffield and I get on very well, we discuss a number of issues. She’s a much-respected member of the parliamentary Labour party and I want to have a discussion with her and anybody else about how we go forward in a positive way.”

Asked how Labour would respond to transgender women who did not want to go on to male hospital wards, Starmer said: “We have to accommodate that situation as it arises, but treat everybody with respect and dignity … I do not accept this is an issue that cannot be resolved with respect and dignity.

“Where we need to make accommodations, we can make accommodations … As a country, we’re a pretty reasonable, tolerant bunch and most people know that there are a small number of individuals who do not identify with the gender that they were born into.

“Many of them suffer great distress and trauma. And for my part, I’m perfectly happy to say I would treat them, as I would treat anybody, with respect.”

Victoria Atkins, the health secretary, has said the Home Office is “used to” losing contact with asylum seekers, after official figures suggested thousands of people it hoped to deport to Rwanda had stopped reporting. Jessica Elgot has the story here.

Good morning. With just two days left before the local elections in England, which could see the Consevatives lose half their seats, according to at last one projection, Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak have both had bits of good news to celebrate in the last 24 hours.

For Starmer, the ongoing SNP meltdown is a big bonus. There are no elections in Scotland this week, but one of the big obstacles to Labour’s recovery at Westminster has been the SNP’s dominance in Scottish politics over the last decade, and that is withering. The SNP is now looking for a candidate to replace Humza Yousaf as first minister and the former deputy first miniser John Swinney seems to be favourite.

I will report any developments on that today.

But there was good news for Sunak last night too. Local election results have a direct impact locally (it can matter a lot who is running your council), but in terms of national politics what matters more is the presentional impact. It is almost impossible to imagine local election results that will look like a triumph for the Tories. But there is an important difference between an unmitigated disaster, and a bad night with a couple of “silver lining” consolation results, and a YouGov poll last night suggests Sunak might clinch two of these.

It suggests Ben Houchen, the Conservative Tees Valley mayor, is seven points ahead of Labour, and on course to win.

A poll two weeks ago by another firm had Houchen neck and neck with his Labour rival, Chris McEwan.

And the new YouGov polling suggests that Andy Street, the Tory West Midlands mayor, is just two points ahead of Labour, which statistically means it is too close to call.

Previous polls have had Labour’s Richard Parker ahead in the West Midlands (by 14 points, one suggested).

This matters because, if Sunak were to lose both the West Midlands and Tees Valley on Thursday, it is hard to see how that would not trigger utter turmoil in the parliamentary party, and a probable leadership challenge. But if the Tories can hold one or even both, Sunak will be able to argue that electoral defeat is not inevitable, and that a Tory leader with a record of delivery can win. Margaret Thatcher pulled off a similar trick in 1990, when Conservative HQ manage to spin mostly dire results in the local election as a win because the Tories held Wandsworth and Westminster.

Of course, holding the West Midlands and Tees Valley would not for a moment alter the fact that national polling implies the Tories are on course to lose the general election very badly. But it might avert a spring leadership crisis.

The Conservatives are also having some success at dictating the campaign agenda. Stamer was on ITV’s Good Morning Britain this morning. Labour is campaigning on the cost of living. But Starmer spent much of the first 10 minutes of the interview being asked about trans issues (he backed the government announcement today saying trans women should not be treated in female-only wards in England), and then spent the rest of the interview fielding questions about Angela Rayner. He was being defensive, and clearly wanted to talk about something else. I will post more on what he said soon.

Starmer has a further campaign announcement coming later today.

Here is the agenda for the day.

9.30am: Rishi Sunak chairs cabinet.

9.30am: The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities publishes homelessness figures for England.

11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.

2pm: Sir Alex Younger, the former head of MI6, gives evidence to the Commons foreign affairs committee about counter-terrorism policy.

Afternoon: Starmer speaks at an Usdaw conference in Blackpool.

3pm: David Cameron, the foreign secretary, gives evidence to the Lords international relations and defence committee.

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