Labour Party Conference LIVE: Protest erupts from union bosses ahead of winter fuel vote

Addressing the conference, Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “Friends, people simply do not understand, I do not understand, how our new Labour government can cut the winter fuel allowance for pensioners and leave the super-rich untouched.

“This is not what people voted for. It is the wrong decision and needs to be reversed."

She added: “Friends, we are the sixth richest economy in the world. We have the money. Britain needs investment, not austerity mark two. We won’t get any gold badge for shaving peanuts off our debt.

“These fiscal rules are self-imposed and the decision to keep them is hanging like a noose around our necks."

Keir Starmer has warned Britons in Lebanon to "leave immediately" amid escalating violence in the Middle Eastern country.

In total, 700 UK troops have been scrambled to nearby Cyprus in case an emergency evacuation is necessary.

The Prime Minister, currently at the Labour Party's conference in Liverpool, said the UK is "ramping up the contingency plans... in light of the escalation."

He was unequivocal in his advice to any Britons still in the country, which has been bombarded by Israeli airstrikes since Monday.

Nigel Farage has claimed more than 30,000 people in his constituency have been stripped of their right to claim the £300 winter fuel allowance.

Posting on X, the Reform UK leader said: "New statistics show that Labour took the Winter Fuel Allowance away from 30,109 pensioners in Clacton.

"Reform will continue to campaign against this vindictive policy."

The GMB will also raise the issue of school support staff they say are missing out on up to £3,860 every year because of "punishing" term time only contracts.

The union say catering, caretakers and administration staff are only paid for 44 weeks a year and cannot claim benefits during the school holidays.

The union said its analysis shows if school support staff were paid for the full 52 weeks of the year, their wages would increase by up to £3,860.

James Wilton, a teaching assistant, said: "Term time only contracts are utterly unjust. It leaves school staff feeling like second class citizens in their own places of work.

"Teaching assistants and other school staff struggle to get by on poverty pay, while the schools themselves rely on their good will to operate.

"They go above and beyond to improve pupils' lives, despite not being paid for eight weeks of the year."

Unite's motion calling for the cut to be reversed was due to be debated earlier this week, but was changed to today, the final day of the conference.

Ms Graham said moving the debate was "disrespectful", adding she was confident of getting support from delegates for the motion, which is being backed by the Communication Workers Union.

CWU officials will not be at the conference on Wednesday as they are attending the funeral in Scotland of the union's former assistant general secretary Andy Kerr, who used to be on Labour's national executive.

Union delegates at Labour's annual conference have staged a noisy protest ahead of a debate on the Government's controversial decision to cut winter fuel allowance.

Members of Unite gathered outside the conference hall, shouting: "Save the winter fuel", alongside the union's general secretary Sharon Graham.

She will address the conference later to urge the Government to reverse its decision.

Wearing a t-shirt bearing the slogan "Save The Winter Fuel", she said the Prime Minister had made a "mis-step" on cutting the allowance, and should reverse it.

She said: "The Government is picking the pockets of pensioners and people are furious.

"We will continue to campaign to have the allowance put back into pensioners' pockets."

Posting in advance of the Labour Party conference vote on plans to means-test the winter fuel payment for pensioners, Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: "I've been calling for the fiscal rules to be changed, no to austerity and a reverse to the #WinterFuelAllowance.

"@UKLabour have said there will be no austerity, they will relax fiscal rules - we need details.

"They now need to move on the winter fuel."

Shouts of "save the winter fuel" could be heard in the Labour Party conference hall in Liverpool ahead of a vote on the issue.

The protest took place at the Unite stand in the venue.

Unite and the Communication Workers Union have put forward a motion to debate the policy and push for its reversal.

The session to consider their motion begins at 10.40am and the vote is expected from 11.35am.

Sir Keir Starmer has slammed the rumours he could close pubs early as "nonsense".

The Prime Minister quelled reports the Government was considering new measures to target harmful drinking.

When the suggestion was put to him, he said: "Nonsense. This is not government policy. We are not going to do it. Closing time is not going to change, I can give you that guarantee.”

Speaking at the Labour Party conference in Liverpool, public health minister Andrew Gwynne said the government is considering “tightening up the hours of operation” of bars and pubs as part of an attempt to improve health and combat anti-social behaviour.

Sir Keir Starmer said he wanted to meet both Kamala Harris and Donald Trump before November's US presidential election.

The Prime Minister is in New York for the UN General Assembly and it is unclear whether he will be able to meet the two White House rivals on this trip.

But he told reporters travelling with him: "As far as the candidates are concerned, look, if possible, it would be very good to meet both of them at some stage before the election. We'll just have to see what's possible.

"But I'm going for the General Assembly. I don't doubt that a lot of time is going to be spent on the Middle East and Ukraine"

Sir Keir Starmer was 'serious’, Angela Rayner ’sneering’ and Ed Miliband was ‘like an undertaker’, a body language expert has said after yesterday's Labour Party conferance.

Speaking exclusively to Paddy Power Games, Judi James said: “The body language tone and mood music of this speech was surprisingly but emphatically sober and serious. Sir Keir Starmer skipped what must have been an almost irresistible desire to perform any form of personal victory roll to celebrate the election.

“His arrival on stage lacked any symptoms of grandiosity or bombast. He took a few slow, barely-smiling steps to the lectern with some frantic pursing and puckering of his lips suggesting he was resisting the temptation to smile and peacock.

“His greeting head nod was a lowering gesture of submission that led into a delivery that was crafted to sound mature, calm and firm.

“His mood seemed to run through the audience, suggesting it had been broadcast on an internal memo. Ed Milliband’s dour, lugubrious expression made him look like an undertaker, Angela Rayner wore a rather sneering lip expression and Yvette Cooper’s mouth was clamped shut and often turned down at the corners."

Mr Streeting also said he is considering a ban on smoking outside pubs.

He told Sky News: "We definitely want to see smoking phased out in our country, we committed to that in our manifesto.

"We want to make sure this generation of children are the healthiest generation that ever lived and therefore they will never be able to legally buy cigarettes.

"We are looking at a range of other measures to also help people who are currently smoking to quit, and also to deal with the scourge of second-hand smoke and passive smoking, which is also harmful. We'll be setting out our proposals on that shortly."

Asked if he will ban smoking outside pubs, he said: "Look, that's one of the measures that I'm considering, and I'm up for a national debate on this issue.

"We have got to do two things - reform the health service, but also reform public health, because we might be living longer, but we're becoming sicker sooner and there is a heavy price being paid for that in our economy, our public finances and in our own health."

Wes Streeting insists pensioners will still be "better off" under Labour in fiery clash with Sky News presenter Kay Burley.

The Health Secretary was quizzed on the benefit cut, with Ms Burley saying Britain's elderly would not have lost the payment under the Conservatives.

Sir Keir Starmer made the same committment during his Labour conference speech yesterday.

Up to 10 million people will lose the winter fuel payment this winter after Chancellor Rachel Reeves' decision to axe the up to £300 lifeline.

Sir Keir continued: "My boy, 16, was in the middle of his GCSEs. I made him a promise, a promise that he would be able to get to his school, do his exams, without being disturbed," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

"We have lots of journalists outside our house where we live and I'm not complaining about that, that's fine.

"But if you're a 16-year-old trying to do your GCSEs and it's your one chance in life - I promised him we would move somewhere, get out of the house and go somewhere where he could be peacefully studying.

"Somebody then offered me accommodation where we could do that. I took that up and it was the right thing to do."

Asked whether he would like to apologise for the row, he told LBC: "I'm not going to apologise for not doing anything wrong."

Sir Keir Starmer has suggested he accepted £20,000 in donations for accommodation because his son needed somewhere to revise for his GCSEs while his family home was besieged by journalists during the election campaign.

The Prime Minister defended his decision to take gifts from Labour peer Lord Alli amid criticism of the arrangement, saying he was "not going to apologise for not doing anything wrong" and the freebies did not "cost the taxpayer a penny".

But Sir Keir signalled he could continue to accept hospitality from donors, saying that it was a matter of "judgment" for individual MPs whether they receive certain kinds of donations.

In a series of broadcast interviews following his speech to the Labour Party annual conference, he also said the transition to Downing Street had been "really difficult" for his two children, who were previously raised in North London.

Asked about the donations, Sir Keir said that around £20,000 he had declared from Lord Alli for unspecified accommodation was for his teenager to study for exams in a "peaceful" atmosphere while the then-Labour leader was overwhelmed with media attention in the run-up to the election.

Unimpressed business leaders have asked for a refund on the £3,000-a-day Labour Conference after failing to get value for their money, reports have suggested.

At least three firms said they would be asking for their money back after they got "minimal time" with ministers.

Labour had boasted it had hundreds of paying executives attending its largest ever business day, in which top corporate figures heard from the prime minister, chancellor and cabinet ministers.

Speaking to The Times, one executive from a well-known household brand said: "We paid £3,000 to come here and what did we get? A livestream of Rachel's [Reeves] speech and then to be made to queue in a bleak corridor for a drinks reception where there was no access to ministers."

Susanna Reid ripped into Sir Keir Starmer as she grilled the Labour leader in a new interview. The Good Morning Britain presenter, 53, sat down with the politician and called out his decision to cut winter fuel payments for pensioners.

Shortly after coming into power, the prime minister announced that the universal payment to pensioners, worth between £100 and £300 a year, would be restricted to just those who receive pension credit.

Mr Starmer and chancellor Rachel Reeves claimed the major cut - worth about £1.5bn - is necessary to fill an alleged £22 billion "black hole" in the budget left by the previous Conservative government.

The politician reiterated this point during his interview with Susanna, laying blame on the previous government. Susanna hit back: "You had choices and you chose to do it. You didn't have to do it, you chose to do it."

Sir Keir Starmer refused to apologise four times for stripping pensioners of the winter fuel payment during an interview with Susanna Reid.

Up to 10 million older people will lose the £300 payment after Rachel Reeves' decision to axe it in a bid to fill a £22 billion black hole.

He said: “Well, it's tough and I think the first thing to say and to explain is why we had to do it. We inherited a really damaged economy, we did an audit and we discovered an undisclosed £22 billion black hole this year, which we have to fix.

"I am really concerned that we've been put in this position. When you inherit an economy with £22 billion missing, it is a really difficult set of choices. But what I don't want to do is to allow the economy to run out of control."

Angela Eagle’s decision to go off-message at the Labour Party conference by seeking to blame Donald Trump for the riots seen in the UK over the summer has triggered a brutal slap down by the former US President’s campaign, with one spokesman saying: “Nobody cares who you are.”

Meanwhile Sir Keir Starmer has sought to distance himself from his own border security minister, insisting that responsibility "lies with the thugs who were carrying out that disorder”.

Ms Eagle yesterday claimed Mr Trump of generating "vitriol" about migrants online that in turn to create a space for "overt racism" which spilled on to British streets.

In comments reported by the Guardian, she said: "If you look at some of the memes that he's using with the wall stuff at the moment, it's astonishing, quite the level of vitriol that it has created," she added.

Stay tuned for regular updates from the last day of the Labour Party conference in Liverpool.