Tory leader contender says party ‘obsessed with Westminster’ rather than country – UK politics live | Politics

We are expecting Tom Tugendhat, who as well as being a candidate for the Conservative leadership is Rishi Sunak’s shadow security minister, to make a speech in a few minutes.

It is clearly part of his leadership campaign, but PA have billed it as “Tom Tugendhat MP will make a speech calling for a national conversation about the underlying causes of the riots, the breakdown of Britain’s social fabric and the rise of criminality on our streets.”

It is worth noting that during the violent disorder of the last two weeks, Conservative spokespersons and shadow ministers on the media round were broadly supportive of the government’s response to the crisis.

Health secretary Wes Streeting has said he “totally understands” why the families of Barnaby Webber, Grace O’Malley-Kumar and Ian Coates have accused the NHS of having “blood on its hands”.

The three were killed by Valdo Calocane, who admitted manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility due to suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, and who was sentenced to indefinite detention in a high-security hospital.

Speaking to viewers on Sky News, Streeting said:

The hard truth here is that had the NHS done its job, had there not been multiple fundamental failures, three innocent people might still be alive. That’s why I totally understand why they’ve accused the NHS of having blood on its hands.

For three grieving families, we are seeing the consequences of what happens when mental health services don’t do what they are legally required to do in terms of supervision of patients, provision of medicine and closer supervision of those who might be at risk of harming themselves or other people.

That’s why I’m not ever going to duck the scale of the challenge or the reality that we face today and we inherited at the election. We are going to take action right across the board, but particularly in mental health.

Whether that’s recruiting 8,000 more mental health staff to help cut the waiting list, doing more at the prevention end by putting mental health support in every primary and secondary school in the country, and walk-in hubs in every community.

And reforming the Mental Health Act in a way that gets the balance right between recognising there are people whose liberties are being deprived today, who could live safely in the community, but also recognising for others, there needs to be much better and closer, supervision, so that people like Valdo Calocane are not able to be on the streets causing risk or indeed fatalities to others.”

Posting a clip of his interview to social media, Streeting said “I will spare everyone ‘lessons must be learned’. Action is under way”.

Former Labour shadow chancellor John McDonnell has called for an inquiry into the process of migrating people on to universal credit after the DWP has published a set of figures which he suggests is “extremely worrying” and “could mean many of the poorest are losing all support”.

The numbers appear to suggest that a third of claimants sent notices to migrate to the universal credit system have not responded to them, and their legacy benefit claims have been closed.

McDonell was among seven Labour MPs who had the whip suspended in July for six months after he voted for an SNP amendment during the king’s speech debate.

Alex Davies-Jones, the minister for victims and violence against women and girls, has just posted a video of a visit to Tamworth, where in recent far-right led violent disorder a hotel housing asylum seekers was targeted.

In the video the Pontypridd MP tells residents “everything you’ve been through, it’s awful, but we want you to know we are here to support you and help you.”

One of the local residents in the video observes “in these sort of situations we realise the community spirit that comes after. It’s very much been in abundance, and everybody’s really pulled together.”

Another person in the clip says they have remained in contact with some of those who have been forced to move away from the hotel, saying they are “very scared and confused” by what has happened.

Our community team are asking for your experiences of being affected by industrial action from GPs in England. You can find out how to get in touch with them here …

Tugendhat: Conservative party needs to ‘stop being obsessed by Westminster’ and focus on country

Conservative leadership candidate Priti Patel has also commented on today’s economic news. She posted to social media to say:

We must continue to hold Labour to account over their falsehoods on the economy. Today’s positive news on employment figures shows the Conservatives left an economy moving in the right direction. Labour are looking for any excuse to raise taxes, which will only damage jobs, growth and hit hardworking families and businesses hard.

Patel has also said that yesterday she spoke to Conservative members of the Senedd, adding “The Welsh Labour government has been a disaster on almost every issue. Our Conservative MSs play a crucial role in holding them to account. If I am elected leader, we will work together to be an effective opposition on both fronts.”

The number of people waiting more than 12 hours at A&E in Scotland has dropped below 1,000 in a single week for the first time since December, the latest figures show.

PA Media reports data released by Public Health Scotland shows 942 people waited longer than half a day – about 3.7% of total attendances at Scotland’s emergency departments in the week to 4 August.

Elsewhere, the proportion of patients seen within four hours remained at the same level as the previous week – 67.9%.

The SNP’s health secretary Neil Gray said: “We continue to see an improved position compared to recent weeks in A&E performance, with over two-thirds of people being seen in our emergency departments within four hours. Although we have the best performing core A&E departments in the UK, performance remains below the level we all wish to see.”

There was a word of caution, however, from Scottish Conservative health spokesperson Dr Sandesh Gulhane, who said one-third of patients waiting longer than normal has become the “dangerous and unacceptable norm”.

The government has told the families of the Nottingham attack victims it will slow down mental health care reforms in the wake of a damning report on the treatment that Valdo Calocane received in the years before the killings. Midlands correspondent Jessica Murray has more here …

Labour’s parliamentary under-secretary of state for Scotland, Kirsty McNeill, has also reacted to the economic news from the country today. In a statement the MP for Midlothian said:

Today’s figures are encouraging but there is still a lot of work to do and the UK government is going to deliver the change the country needs. Giving people support to join the workforce and the security they need to remain in fairly paid jobs is vital as we tackle poverty and grow the economy.

We’re banning exploitative zero-hours contracts, we’ve taken the first steps to make the national minimum wage a real living wage, and we’re planning JobCentre reform.

Labour market statistics have shown Scotland’s GDP grew by 0.3% in May, and the Scottish government says the latest figures represent the highest number of payrolled employees in Scotland since July 2014, with median monthly pay the highest recorded yet. [See 10.23 BST]