Summary

  • The Archbishop of Canterbury attacks the government's migration plans, describing them as "morally unacceptable"

  • Justin Welby says the Illegal Migration Bill, making its passage through the House of Lords, will not stop small boat crossings

  • However, Home Secretary Suella Braverman has urged peers to get behind the legislation and not block the "will of the people"

  • Earlier, Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer clashed over the cost of living and local elections at Prime Minister's Questions

  • The Labour leader said his party would freeze council tax bills if in government, adding that the Conservatives have "no answers"

  • But Sunak accused Starmer of being "all politics and no action", insisting the Conservatives are "delivering for the British people"

  • Earlier, Starmer refused to rule out a coalition with the Lib Dems if Labour fails to win a majority at the next general election

Live Reporting

Edited by Heather Sharp

  1. What happened in the local elections?

    Let's hear a little more about those English local election results, which are also likely to come up later in the Commons:

    • More than a 1,000 Tory councillors lost their seats and the party lost control of 48 councils overall
    • Labour gained over 500 seats and new overall majorities in 22 local authorities
    • It was a good night for the Lib Dems, who won over 400 more seats and secured control of 12 additional councils
    • The Green's best election results ever translated to more than 240 new councillors, and they gained majority control of a council in the UK for the first time in Mid Suffolk
    • UKIP is on the brink of being wiped out, after losing all its remaining district and county councillors

    Chart showing change in the control of councils in England by various parties, including Labour being up 22 to hold 71 council majorities, Conservatives down by 48 councils to control 33, Lib Dems up by 12 to 29 councils controlled.

    See the results in maps and charts here.

    And if you want analysis of what the results mean, the BBC’s polling expert Prof John Curtice has written this.

  2. Welcome to a busy day in Westminster

    Dulcie Lee
    Live reporter

    Hello and welcome to our weekly live coverage of Prime Minister’s Questions, or PMQs as it’s commonly known.

    After a busy week in UK politics, we’ll see Prime Minister Rishi Sunak face Labour leader Keir Starmer at the despatch box in their first head to head since last week’s local elections.

    Sunak’s Conservative Party lost more than 1,000 councillors while Starmer’s Labour gained 537, including in key election battlegrounds such as Swindon and Plymouth, so we’ll likely hear the leaders’ views on that.

    Meanwhile over in the House of Lords, there’ll be a debate on the government’s Illegal Migration Bill at 11:00 BST with one Lib Dem peer, Lord Paddick, seeking to block it.

    There’s a long list of peers wanting to speak, including Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, who will make a rare intervention to oppose the bill.

    We’ll cover key moments from the debate, as well as PMQs later. Welcome along.