Alexandra Fouché
Live reporter

And with those round-ups of today's top stories, we draw our live coverage to a close.

Thank you for joining us across what has been a busy and varied day of political action. Before we go, here's where you can find and continue reading more about the day's major events:

• We began with the findings of a report into allegations of groping against ex-Tory MP Chris Pincher, who was dealt an eight-week suspension. Read more on this here
• Next came Sir Keir Starmer's speech on education policy, during which he promised to "tear down" obstacles to opportunity. Click here to read on
• This afternoon, the High Court ruled that Boris Johnson's unredacted WhatsApp messages, notebooks and diaries must be handed over to the Covid-19 Inquiry. More on this here

This page was edited by Andrew Humphrey and Alexandra Fouché. The writers were Chas Geiger, Sean Seddon, Ece Goksedef, Emily Atkinson and Ali Abbas Ahmadi.

The government will work towards handing over the Boris Johnson documents requested by the Covid Inquiry by next week, Downing Street has said.

The prime minister's official spokesman described the High Court ruling as "sensible" and the "appropriate way forward".

Inquiry chair Baroness Heather Hallett has called for the documents to be handed over by 16:00 on Monday.

Image source, PA Media

Former government whip Chris Pincher is facing an eight-week suspension from the Commons after Parliament's Standards Committee found he had groped two men at a London private members' club last year.

It described his behaviour as "completely inappropriate" and an "abuse of power".

The sanction will have to be endorsed by the whole House of Commons, which could trigger a by-election in his Tamworth constituency if at least 10% of voters there call for one.

In a statement, Pincher said he wanted to "reflect" on the report's conclusions, but did not intend to comment further at this time.

He said he wanted to "apologise sincerely" for his conduct, adding that he had sought professional medical help.

Hallett wins again: A lesson from legal historypublished at 16:50 British Summer Time 6 July 2023

16:50 BST 6 July 2023

Dominic Casciani
Legal correspondent

Ever since this row kicked off, I've wondered whether the prime minister had heard about Baroness Hallett's reputation.

If there were a national prize for Least Likely To Be A Pushover, this tough no-nonsense former Court of Appeal judge would probably win it. Here's why.

Thirteen years ago, Lady Justice Hallett, as she then was, oversaw the heart-breaking inquests into the 2005 suicide attacks in London, in which 52 people were killed by four bombers.

MI5 and the Home Office tried to convince her to keep secret what spooks had known about the ringleader of the attacks. I oversimplify, but after some legal trench warfare, Hallett ruled that the bereaved families must know the facts.

MI5's attempt to overturn that decision in the High Court, with the help of the then Home Secretary Theresa May, was so thin that a judge declared part of their argument to be "hopeless", external.

Lady Justice Hallett had called the law right: there is inevitably a place for confidentiality or secrecy when it comes to sensitive national secrets. But there must also be transparency for the victims of an appalling tragedy.

And in the aftermath, ministers found themselves accused of a spectacularly clumsy attempt to cover up the truth. I'll leave you to decide whether that sounds familiar...

Will half a million more children hit their targets?published at 16:39 British Summer Time 6 July 2023

16:39 BST 6 July 2023

In his speech this morning, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer announced a target to “boost child development with half a million more children hitting their early learning targets by 2030”.

The target - which applies to England only - will be measured using Department for Education data, external which looks at teacher assessments of pupils at the end of Reception (ages four to five).

In the latest data from 2022, 65% of 623,000 Reception pupils were recorded as having a good level of development across areas such as communication, language, mathematics and literacy.

Under its education plans, Labour wants the proportion of children who reach this development goal to rise to 90% by 2030., external But how does this equal to half a million more children?

It may sound like a pledge for a single year, but Labour told us the figure was actually cumulative, so an extra 500,000 children in total would hit their targets between 2025 and 2030.

Image source, PA Media

Earlier today, Sir Keir Starmer's speech pledging to smash the "class ceiling" by boosting poorer children's education was interrupted by protesters accusing him of U-turning on green policies. Two young people, part of the backdrop to the Labour leader's address in Gillingham, pulled out a banner and accused him of watering down his climate ambitions, before they were led off the stage by security.

• It emerged they were activists with the Green New Deal Rising group, which later threatened to escalate its tactics against Labour if they were not listened to

• Starmer denied backtracking on Labour's flagship pledge to invest £28bn a year on a green energy transition, after the party said last month it would ramp up spending rather that hit that sum in the first year of a Labour government. He said he was "doubling down" on his clean power by 2030 mission

• His speech focused on the last of the party's five missions - a pledge to "break down barriers to opportunity"

• Measures he set out included teaching children speaking skills, boosting vocational training including a new national skills plan, expanding mental health access for new parents, and recruiting more teachers in shortage subjects

• He promised a goal of half a million more children reaching early learning targets by 2030, as well as a review of the curriculum from the beginning of primary school through to the end of compulsory education

Leader of the House of Commons and Tory MP Penny Mordaunt has called for a review of the Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme (ICGS) - the parliamentary watchdog responsible for looking into complaints of inappropriate behaviour against MPs.

Speaking in the House during business questions, Mordaunt said the only way to improve the situation for MPs was to recognise “that we are not just one organisation, but a community of many and that processes and volume of standards bodies, 13 separate entities and counting, does not improve behaviour”.

She said the House required a “cultural change”, and added that she had already told the Standards Committee and the Commons Speaker that the ICGS review needed to be brought forward.

Mordaunt's comments come after a BBC Newsnight report saying there was a “predatory culture” in Westminster, and follows allegations of misconduct by former Tory (and now independent) MP Chris Pincher.

Image source, PA Media

The government has lost its legal challenge to the Covid inquiry's demand for Boris Johnson's unredacted WhatsApp messages, notebooks and diaries. The Cabinet Office had asked the High Court to rule on inquiry chair Baroness Hallett's order to release the documents, arguing it should not have to hand over material that was "unambiguously irrelevant".

• In their ruling, Lord Justice Dingemans and Mr Justice Garnham dismissed the claim for judicial review

• The Cabinet Office described the judgement as "sensible", because it would allow Hallett to see what she deemed relevant, while working with the government to respect the privacy of individuals and ensure completely irrelevant information was not retained

• The judges suggested the Cabinet Office could make its case directly to the inquiry about which documents should be considered irrelevant. The inquiry may apply its own redactions to documents, and may decide against making some of them public at all

• The government confirmed it would not appeal

• At a hearing, Hugo Keith KC, for Hallett, argued the idea that the Cabinet Office could decide which aspects were relevant "would emasculate this and future inquiries"

• Johnson himself had backed Hallett in the case

• Deborah Doyle, spokeswoman for Covid-19 Bereaved Families For Justice UK, called the legal challenge "a desperate waste of time and money", adding that the inquiry needed "to be able to access all of the evidence, not just what the Cabinet Office wants it to see"

• The inquiry said it was "pleased" with the verdict, and that Baroness Hallett expected to receive the material by 16:00 BST on Monday

• The judgement is likely to strengthen the authority of the inquiry and its ability to demand evidence

Trades Union Congress General Secretary Paul Nowak said the inquiry was "important to us all. It's how we can learn lessons to save lives, including front-line workers in any future pandemic".

By challenging the inquiry's requests for evidence, he said ministers had cost the public millions of pounds.

"They must now end their shameful attempts to disrupt the inquiry by denying it full transparency and truth," Nowak added.

Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner has criticised PM Rishi Sunak for attempting to "undermine" the Covid Inquiry after the government lost its High Court case to withhold Boris Johnson’s unredacted WhatsApp messages.

Rayner accused the prime minister of "wasting time and taxpayers’ money on doomed legal battles to withhold evidence" from the inquiry, calling the ruling a “humiliating defeat”.

She urged the government to hand over all the evidence the inquiry required, saying “there can be no more excuses for concealing the truth”.

The very last paragraph of the High Court ruling and the government's response make clear that there are still some discussions to be had over how these documents are handled.

The ruling upholds the right of public inquiries to "fish" for documents - and notes that such an approach is "bound to lead to the inclusion of some irrelevant material".

But the judges added the Cabinet Office would be within its rights to make applications to the inquiry over material it says is wholly irrelevant and wants to be returned without entering the public domain.

In practice, that would mean the inquiry chair reviewing the documents flagged by the Cabinet Office and having discussions with government officials about what constitutes "relevant" in relation to various messages and papers - potentially a large number of them.

Because of today's ruling, the inquiry chair will make the final decision on what is and isn't relevant - but not before some detailed talks with the Cabinet Office.

In its response, the government says it will "work with the inquiry team on the practical arrangements".

The High Court’s decision is a “victory for transparency” and a “humiliating defeat for the government, the Lib Dems have said.

“Rishi Sunak should have never wasted taxpayers’ money trying to dodge scrutiny and hide the truth,” the party’s Cabinet Office spokesperson Christine Jardine said in a statement

“The government must now agree to comply fully with the Covid inquiry’s requests,” she says, adding that bereaved families “deserve better than this endless game of smoke and mirrors.”

The ruling gives us an indication of the type of messages the government is reluctant to hand over to the inquiry.

In a confidential submission to the court, the Cabinet Office flagged "messages about border incursions by one foreign state into the territory of another foreign state", as well as "the trial of foreign nationals in the courts of another foreign state".

The government argued that around one third of the messages were "unambiguously irrelevant" to the work of the inquiry.

In their ruling, the judges wrote "it might be noted that this meant that two-thirds of the messages were relevant".

Laura Foster
Health reporter

Today’s decision by the High Court has almost certainly strengthened the power of the UK Covid-19 public inquiry and its chair Baroness Hallett.

That’s because public inquiries are run entirely on public trust.

If the general public doesn’t have faith in an inquiry’s proceedings and methods, then it could make it more difficult for its findings and recommendations to be believed and universally accepted.

In short, unless an inquiry has authority, it could be a huge waste of time and money.

Baroness Hallett and her team do have the power to legally demand evidence from anyone. It will be interesting to see whether anyone tries to block them again in future.

In their decision, Lord Justice Dingemans and Mr Justice Garnham said the chair of the inquiry would return documents she found to be "obviously irrelevant".

The two judges said: "If, on examination, the chair of the inquiry rules that the document relates to a matter in question at the inquiry, and the person who has the document accepts this, that will be an end of the matter.

The two judges added: "To answer the practical issue which seems to have divided the Cabinet Office and the chair of the inquiry, the chair of the inquiry may examine the contested documents, and if the chair of the inquiry agrees that they are obviously irrelevant, will return them."

A spokesperson for Baroness Hallett said the inquiry chair was "pleased the court has upheld her Section 21 notice.

“Following the court’s judgement, the inquiry has varied its order to require the disclosure of materials by 4pm on Monday 10 July.”

We're going through the technical 16 page ruling now to pull out the most important sections - but should you wish to read it for yourself, it's right here, external.

In their ruling, the High Court judges set out some of the contested documents.

One of the types sought by the inquiry "were the WhatsApp messages in a group chat which had been established for the purpose of communicating about the UK Government's response to the Covid-19 pandemic", they say.

"Another class of documents sought were the specific threads of WhatsApp messages exchanged between ministers and advisers who were dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic.

"The diaries and notebooks sought were very likely to contain information about decision-making relating to the Covid-19 pandemic and therefore 'relate to a matter in question at the inquiry'", the judges add.

Elkan Abrahamson, who represents the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK group, has said that this was “the correct decision to ensure the inquiry maintains its authority and allows it to get to the truth".

"Without full access to all relevant evidence, the integrity of the inquiry would have been further undermined and left toothless by the very government that set it up. We hope the government will accept the decision and, as they keep urging us to do after their breaches of Covid rules, ‘move on’".

Abrahamson, who is head of major inquests and inquiries at the Broudie Jackson Canter law firm, added: "We would also urge the inquiry to be as transparent with us as they want the Cabinet Office to be with them, something they have failed to do since the inquiry started.”

The government has already responded to the High Court ruling, and said it will not appeal.

In a statement, it says the inquiry is "an important step to learn lessons from the pandemic and the government is cooperating in the spirit of candour and transparency".

It calls the judgment a "sensible resolution" that will mean "the inquiry Chair is able to see the information she may deem relevant, but we can work together to have an arrangement that respects the privacy of individuals and ensures completely irrelevant information is returned and not retained".

“We will comply fully with this judgment and will now work with the inquiry team on the practical arrangements," it adds.