We've just had reaction from Chancellor Rachel Reeves to this morning's news that UK GDP grew 0.4% in May.

"Delivering economic growth is our national mission, and we don't have a minute to waste," she says.

"That is why this week I have already taken the urgent action necessary to fix the foundations of our economy to rebuild Britain and make every part of Britain better off.

"A decade of national renewal has begun, and we are just getting started."

A reminder, this morning's growth figures are from before the change in government.

Image source, Reuters

More now from the ONS on those growth figures.

"The economy grew strongly in May with all the main sectors seeing increases," says ONS director of economic statistics, Liz McKeown.

"Many retailers and wholesalers had a good month, with both bouncing back from a weak April."

McKeown adds that construction grew at its "fastest rate in almost a year" with housebuilding and infrastructure projects boosting the industry - and manufacturing also grew a little, led by food and drink firms.

Simon Jack
Business editor

Ofwat has provisionally approved an average increase in water bills of £94, or 21%, to be phased in over the next five years.

The figure varies by region, with Thames customers seeing an increase of £99, or 23%; Anglian £66, or 13%; and Southern Water £183 - an increase of 44%.

In total, Ofwat has approved £88 billion of new investment.

Separately, water bosses will meet the Environment Secretary Steve Reed as the government introduces new measures to ensure that money earmarked for investment and improvements is ringfenced and cannot be diverted to pay salaries or dividends.

Customer panels will have powers to hold directors and executives to account while compensation to customers for failures to hit required standards could be more than doubled.

The crackdown comes at a time of rising consumer anger at pollution but also with some companies - including heavily indebted Thames Water, asking for leniency due to financial distress.

The UK economy grew by 0.4% in May, according to the Office for National Statistics.

It says services (+0.3%), production (+0.2%) and construction (+1.9%) all grew on the month.

The ONS says this came after showing no growth in April.

The Times reports the new government is to "make a major pitch to companies to recruit former prisoners".

It says the prisons minister, Lord Timpson - whose business has employed thousands of ex-offenders - wants to "significantly boost" the number of firms hiring them.

Meanwhile, the i says ministers are to force water companies to refund customer bills if they fail to tackle sewage spills.

And a few of the papers say former Conservative MP Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg is to become a reality TV star, after losing his seat at the election. The Guardian reports the show, called Meet The Rees-Moggs, will be available on the streaming platform Discovery+ this year.

More here.

Believe it or not, a week ago today we were all heading to polling stations, casting our votes and then patiently waiting (some of us until the early morning) to see who our prime minister would be.

Things move quickly in politics, but formalities need to be adhered to.

You may have noticed over the past few days that MPs have been queuing up in the House of Commons to “swear in” - it’s a process that has been listed on the Commons timetable on Tuesday, Wednesday and again today.

The Speaker of the House of Commons is the first to be sworn in - or in other words take an oath of allegiance to the Crown. To do so, MPs can choose to use either a religious text or take a solemn affirmation. Until they‘ve done this, they are unable to take their seat, participate in debates, vote or take a salary.

If you’re interested in learning more about this, there’s further details on the Parliament website here, external.

As we've been reporting, the UK water industry has made it onto the government’s priority list - with Environment Secretary Steve Reed set to meet companies today, less than a week after taking up his new role.

He is set to announce a number of reforms including ensuring that water infrastructure funding is ringfenced for upgrades and that consumers would be able to summon bosses to meetings.

Reed has pledged to “never look the other way while water companies pump sewage into our rivers, lakes and seas”.

Today will also see the Water Services Regulation Authority, Ofwat, publishing a draft of future spending plans for the industry - that will include details on what suppliers can do with consumer bills for the next five years. The final version of that will not come until December.

Today’s meeting comes against the backdrop of sewage spills and public outrage.

Reed said: “This unacceptable destruction of our waterways should never have been allowed, but change has now begun so it can never happen again.

“Over the coming weeks and months, this government will outline further steps to reform the water sector and restore our rivers, lakes and seas to good health.”

It’s all change this week. And here’s a quick recap of yesterday to bring you up to speed.

• Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer was in Washington for the Nato 75th anniversary summit where he met US President Joe Biden among other world leaders
• MPs continued to be sworn-in following the election (the process is set to continue into today)
• Details were revealed of a strategic defence review - set to begin next week. That’s in light of a pledge to reach a defence funding target of 2.5% national income. No timeframe has yet been given on that target
• Conservatives Suella Braverman and Kemi Badenoch took to social media as the party begins to reflect on the general election campaign. James Cleverly, writing in the Times, called for a “sensible post-mortem”

As we’ve just mentioned, top of the political agenda is the prime minister’s trip to Washington for the Nato summit, where support for Ukraine in its ongoing war with Russia is one of the main topics.

Sir Keir Starmer is expected to hold a news conference later in the day.

Elsewhere, we’re expecting to hear from new Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall later on her plans to get people back to work, while Environment Secretary Steve Reed will hold talks with Britain’s water companies, who’ve been heavily criticised for the amounts of sewage they’ve been releasing into our waters.

And Welsh Secretary Jo Stevens will be visiting Tata Steel in Port Talbot, where she’s due to make an announcement on the Transition Board (established to support those affected by a proposed transition to low-CO2 steelmaking).

Good morning and welcome to today’s UK politics live page.

After a busy first week in the job as prime minister, Keir Starmer is spending a second day in Washington DC for the 75th anniversary summit of the Nato military alliance.

On Wednesday, Starmer met US President Joe Biden for the first time and other world leaders - including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky - in his first major event on the world stage as PM.

He later had his first one-on-one talks with the president at the White House, where he said relations between the UK and US are "stronger than ever".

President Biden, for his part, called the US and UK the "best of allies", saying the UK was "the transatlantic knot" that ties Nato together with its European members.

Another full day lies ahead for the UK leader today, with events including a wreath laying ceremony at Arlington cemetery, as well as meetings with other Nato-member state leaders expected.

Back in Parliament, the newest MPs will be sworn in today in what is expected to be the last raft of oath takers.

Stay with us for the latest political updates, analysis and commentary.

We’re pausing our live coverage of UK politics for now. But we'll continue to cover the Nato summit live, and you can follow along here.

The action for Nato starts this afternoon - including the famous class photograph of all the world leaders.

Defence has been top of the UK political agenda today – with a particular focus on spending plans. And we've also heard from senior Tories who are beginning to speak publicly about what comes next following their election drubbing. Here's the latest:

• Keir Starmer is in Washington for a Nato summit – his first international trip since taking on the job, he's expected to have his first face-to-face meeting with US President Joe Biden there too
• Starmer says his plan to raise defence spending to 2.5% is "cast iron" - but he's not putting a timescale on achieving it, and instead his government is going to carry out a defence review as a "first step"
• New armed forces minister Luke Pollard says he has been "reassured" by senior military officials that the UK has the ability to defend itself
• The Conservatives say that a "clear timetable" is needed for the defence spending pledge, and claim it is "damaging" for the armed forces not to have one
• The inquest into the Tories' election defeat appears to be under way – James Cleverly says the process has to be "sensible" and that his party has been "too often preoccupied with infighting", while the new head of the 1922 Tory backbench committee, Bob Blackman, says his party needs to "win back" trust
• Newly-elected MPs are still being sworn into Parliament, and there's no PMQs today.

Image source, Reuters

Prime Minister Keir Starmer has had a one-on-one meeting with the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Washington ahead of the Nato summit.

You can read more here at our Nato summit live page.

Chas Geiger
BBC News

Once MPs are sworn in, these are the next dates for your calendar:

Wednesday 17 July: The State Opening of Parliament , externalwill mark the formal start of the new parliamentary session. The King will deliver the King's Speech, setting out the government's programme of new laws.

Tuesday 23 July: Before former PM Rishi Sunak called the election, this was when the summer recess was due to start. But the government is now expected to cut short the summer break, with MPs sitting until 31 July.

Wednesday 24 July: That would mean Starmer would face his first Prime Minister's Questions as PM on this day. As things stand, Sunak would be asking the questions as opposition leader.

Elaine Dunkley and Alice Evans
BBC News education team

Image source, Department for Education/PA Wire

In addition to the various MPs taking up ministerial posts in government, another job offer has caught our eye today.

Sir Kevan Collins used to be in charge of a government mission to help pupils who had missed out on education during the Covid pandemic.

But in June 2021, he quit in protest at the £1.4bn the Conservative government put towards for the task - he'd wanted more than 10 times that amount.

Now, he’s back in the Department for Education – this time to advise on driving higher standards in schools.

His job will include looking for solutions to tackle teacher shortages and high pupil absence rates.

Sir Kevan is straight talking and understands the barriers deprivation causes for education.

But Labour has already said that budgets are tight - so the question may again come down to whether there’s enough money to tackle the problems the way he wants to.

Sir Lindsay Hoyle was re-elected as Commons speaker yesterday - in a tradition that saw him being dragged through the House of Commons to his chair.

Asked by LBC just now how confident he was that he'd be re-elected, he says: "I always think I'm in trouble.

"I'm one of those candidates that always thinks the worst, never the best, of what the result can be."

But he adds that he was "very pleased", saying: "It was a ringing endorsement from all the political parties yesterday and I cannot thank them enough".

Alicia McCarthy
Parliamentary correspondent

It’s day two of MPs swearing in.

All MPs have to enter the Chamber, walk up to the Commons Despatch Box and take the oath of allegiance to the King before they can get to work, or get paid!

There are 650 MPs so it takes a couple of days to get everyone signed up.

That means there’s no PMQs today .

The new session of Parliament will get fully under way next week.

All the newly sworn in MPs will gather on Wednesday for one of the big set pieces of the parliamentary year, the King’s Speech.

That’s where the government will set out the first bills that it wants to make into laws.

The team at Ukrainecast have been looking at what this week’s summit can achieve, what Donald Trump could do with the alliance if he’s elected US president, as well as Ukraine’s chances of joining the bloc.

In their latest episode, Victoria Derbyshire and Vitaly Shevchenko are joined by former US ambassador to Nato, Kurt Volker.

You can hear the episode here.

Is the Army the smallest since Napoleon?published at 12:24 British Summer Time 10 July

12:24 BST 10 July

Speaking on the Today programme this morning, the new armed forces minister Luke Pollard said: “Our army is now the smallest since Napoleon.”

This claim is broadly correct if you look at one measure of the Army’s size.

As of April 2024, there were 75,325 members of the UK’s regular Army forces (excluding Gurkhas and volunteers), according to Ministry of Defence (MoD) figures, external.

In 1800 - at the start of the Napoleonic era - the Army was about 80,000-strong, according to data released by the MoD in 2017., external

However, if you factor in army reservists – which number more than 30,000 – you get to a total larger than in the days of Napoleon.

But the 1800s was a radically different military era, with cavalry rather than tanks and cyber threats. So the number of soldiers now and then isn’t most useful benchmark of defence capability.

Image source, PA Media

Sir Keir Starmer has been joined on his first international trip as prime minister by his foreign secretary, defence secretary, and his minister for European relations.

Asked by journalists travelling with him why Nick Thomas Symonds - the minister for constitution and European relations - had come, Starmer says: “Because we’ve got the Nato summit within a week of the election, so we get the opportunity to strengthen our relations with various of the Nato leaders and others obviously that are there, including EU leaders.”

He says, with the meeting of the European Political Community (a new political club) taking place in the UK next week, he wants “Nick and David and John and me... to make sure we take full advantage of this opportunity”.

“These are meetings which would probably take months and months and months for us to fit in as a team, if we were not taking advantage of this summit”, he says.