Starmer ‘very interested’ in Italy’s plan to offshore asylum applications in Albania, says Meloni – UK politics live

UK to contribute 4m to Italian project on irregular migration, PM announces

Here are some pictures from Keir Starmer's meeting with his Italian counterpart, Giorgia Meloni, at the Villa Doria Pamphilj in Rome. They seem to be geting on pretty well.

Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, has been urged by leading economists to loosen the government's fiscal rules to allow more public investment.

The challenge of renewing Britain requires the rebuilding of crumbling public services while also investing in the clean infrastructure needed to meet our climate targets and create an economy that is more resilient in the future. This challenge cannot be met by the private sector alone, it requires a step change in levels of public investment.

Yet the government has inherited spending plans that imply substantial real-terms cuts in public investment over the current parliament. We do not see how the planned decade of national renewal" can take place if these cuts are delivered. To follow through on these plans would be to repeat the mistakes of the past, where investment cuts made in the name of fiscal prudence have damaged the foundations of the economy and undermined the UK's long-term fiscal sustainability.