Politics live blog - Thursday 13 January

Rolling coverage of all the day's political developments as voters go to the polls in the Oldham East and Saddleworth byelection

10.43am: For the record, here are the latest YouGov GB polling figures.

Labour: 43% (up 13 points from the general election)
Conservatives: 36% (down 1)
Lib Dems: 9% (down 15)

Government approval: -24

This is the lowest government approval rating since the election. And it is the largest Labour lead in a YouGov poll since the election.

10.13am: If you missed last night's Newsnight special about the Oldham East and Saddleworth byelection, you can watch it here. They had a panel discussion featuring Lady Warsi, the Conservative chairman, Douglas Alexander, the shadow work and pensions secretary, and Tim Farron, the Lib Dem president.

9.42am: Plans to reform child maintenance rules are going to be announced today in a written ministerial statement. Here is what the Press Association is saying about the story.


The government will today propose the biggest overhaul of child maintenance for a decade, arguing that the current system encourages conflict between parents.
Speaking in the Daily Mail, Mrs Miller said: "We know that if effective financial arrangements are in place, those parents are much more likely to stay in contact and much more likely to have a strong relationship with their children. Staying in contact with both parents is absolutely critical to give a child the best start in life."
The minister said the latest figures showed there were 3.5 million children from broken homes, with almost half having no effective maintenance arrangements.
"Twenty per cent of children from separated families lose contact with the non-resident parent within just three years," she added.
"That is a tragedy. But the current system entrenches conflict when families separate."
Unde! r the pr oposals, separating parents will be encouraged to find a settlement on their own and those who insist on State intervention will now have to pay a fee.
Payments will be overseen by the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission, which is taking over the work of the Child Support Agency.
Ministers claim there is currently a 4bn arrears in maintenance payments from non-resident parents.
Mrs Miller said the child maintenance system costs 460 million a year.
She also pointed to research that suggested children who are not brought up in a two-parent family are 75% more likely to fail at school, 70% more likely to become a drug addict, 40% more likely to have serious debt problems and 35% more likely to become unemployed or welfare dependent.

Here's the Daily Mail article.

9.23am: The government is confirming today that it is scrapping default retirement at 65. That means people will have the right to carry on working beyond that age if they are able and willing to do so. The new regulations will be phased in between April and October. Ed Davey, the Lib Dem business minster, was on the Today programme talking about change. He said that there are around 850,000 workers aged over 65 in the UK and that businesses should welcome the new rules.

Many older people have skills and a huge contribution to make to businesses and those businesses that have got rid of fixed retirement ages find it very beneficial. They have seen it boost their business, not have a negative effect. People are living longer, having healthier lives and they have a lot to contribute.

Davey also rejected the suggestions that making it easier for over 65s to stay in work would mean fewer jobs for younger people.

The opposite is the case. Because of this policy, the evidence suggests that there will be an increase in the number of workers in the workforce. That will boost the ec! onomy, i ncreasing GDP, increasing tax revenue. Evidence internationally shows more people in the labour market means more activity, more income, more growth.

Those people who seem to think there is a displacement between young people and older people are not reading the evidence and have a very old-fashioned approach to labour supply, as if there is a fixed amount of jobs in the economy. That clearly isn't the case.

8.56am: Did you know that we have a prison housed in a medieval castle? At least, we did. It's HMP Lancaster Castle. But Kenneth Clarke, the justice secretary, has just announced that it is one of two prisons that is being closed. A third is being turned into an immigration removal centre.

The Tory right believe that Clarke is deeply unsound on prisons and, in the news release from the Ministry of Justice, Clarke goes out of his way to make the point that he will still have enough space to lock up wrong'uns. On Friday 7 January there were 82,991 people in jail. But the prison service had space for 87,936 inmates. Clarke says it is sensible to close outdated prisons.

The decision to close any prison is a difficult one but one that we have had to make. Closing outdated and expensive prisons is an important step in our strategy to provide a secure and modern, fit for purpose prison estate, while improving efficiency and value for the taxpayer.

The changes will reduce our current capacity by 849 places and I am confident that they can be safely managed within existing headroom, whilst maintaining our ability to cope with any increase in population. Security remains our highest priority and we will ensure that this, along with efficiency and current performance levels, is maintained across the estate.

Decisions on the future size of the prison estate will be driven by population demand and prisons will only close when capacity allows. We will always ensure that there are sufficient places for those offenders sentenced to custody by the courts, including a margin to ! manage f luctuations in the prison population. Decisions to close future capacity will only be taken if they do not put this ability at risk.

HMP Lancaster, which has space for 238 inmates, is closing because the medieval building places "severe limitations" on the ability of officers to run a proper prison. HMP Ashwell, which has a capacity of 214, is closing because two thirds of the accommodation is out of use and refurbishing it is not thought to be cost effective. And HMP Morton Hall, which has 392 spaces, will become an immigration removal centre.

8.39am: How many Manchester City Council workers live in Oldham East and Saddleworth? There must be a few. Today the council has said that it needs to get rid of 2,000 staff - about 17% of the workforce - which is unlikely to help the coalition parties standing in the byelection. Here's the explanation from Sir Richard Leese, the Labour leader of the council.

The unfairness of the government's financial grant settlement for Manchester, one of the five worst in the country, has been widely reported. We now have to find 110m in savings next year - 60m more than expected - because of front-loading and the re-distribution of money from Manchester to more affluent areas.

There are more details on the Manchester Evening News website.

8.32am: Voting has already started in Oldham East and Saddleworth, where the first byelection of this parliament is taking place. According to a Twitter post from Labour's Douglas Alexander, who is in the constituency delivering leaflets, it's drizzling. As Nicholas Watt explains in the Guardian today, the election is a key test for Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg. I'll be going up to the constituency this after! noon and writing a live blog this evening, starting before the polls close and bringing you minute-by-minute updates from the count, where the result is due at around 1am. There will be much more about that later.

In the meantime, it's reasonably busy at Westminster. Here's what's on the agenda.

10.15am: David Cameron meets Herman Van Rompuy, the president of the European Council, at Downing Street.

10.30am: Vince Cable answers business questions in the Commons. It's his first question session since he lost control of media regulation after his "declaring war on Rupert Murdoch" comments were revealed.

12.30pm: Cameron meets Franois Fillon, the French prime minister, at Downing Street.

We've also got the publication of the pensions bill, the release of an implementation plan for health visitors and an announcement about Royal Parks.

I'll be blogging until 1pm, when I'll post a lunchtime summary. As usual, I'll cover all the breaking political news, as well as looking at the papers and bringing you the best politics from the web.


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