The home secretary addressed the Labour conference, where she stated that the government's task is to make the country fairer. She said that fairness is what unites people in this country and that a fair society releases the best in us.
Mahmood spoke about her family, noting that her parents had come to this country from rural Kashmir because they knew they would receive a fair chance for a better life here. She highlighted that her parents were generally welcomed, as most British people considered it right to welcome people who had arrived legally, built a new life, and contributed to the nation, with the exceptions of that welcome in the 1970s.
According to her, when people feel that this country is fair, they are more open and generous towards others. When we are secure, we are more tolerant of others, she said, adding that a proud Muslim can also be a proud Brit and a proud Brummie.
Mahmood warned of the opposite situation: when this country acts unfairly, people turn inwards. Britain becomes smaller and colder for those who look like her, she said. She added that her job is to create that fairness in the immigration system and on the streets.
Other officials spoke at the conference. The business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, announced that the government would close 'loopholes in self-employment' that deny workers basic rights. He said that these loopholes are used to define workers as self-employed when they are clearly not, thereby denying them basic rights, undermining businesses that operate fairly, and creating a sense that following the rules is not worthwhile. He assessed that this is a fundamental issue of fairness and announced a formal consultation, to be published in the coming weeks, on how to curb abuses, provide greater legal security for workers, and potentially extend basic workers' rights to those often excluded from them. The consultation will consider proposals for a legal presumption of worker status when a case is brought before the court.
The energy secretary, Miatta Fahnbulleh, stated that the £15 billion investment in home energy efficiency by the Labour government would be devolved to mayors, local authorities, and communities. The Warm Homes plan, she said, provides funding and favourable loans for insulation, clean heating, solar panels, and batteries for five million homes, with the aim of reducing bills and greenhouse gas emissions and pulling people out of energy poverty. Fahnbulleh stated that energy bills are the result of the UK's exposure to global fossil fuel markets and that the country has a privatised energy system designed to benefit shareholders, not families or businesses. For a fair and affordable energy system, she believes, the public must have control, but 'public control cannot mean just national control, it must be local because power must be close to the people'. She announced that the government would devolve the Warm Homes plan, the largest investment in home insulation in British history, so that decisions are not made in Whitehall, but that mayors, local authorities, and communities are given the power to invest millions of pounds in their local area, to restore millions of homes, to regenerate neighbourhoods, to train young people for skilled jobs, to support local businesses in the supply chain, and to lift their community.
The finance minister, in an interview with Matt Chorley on Radio 5 Live, declined to say that Labour would commit to maintaining the triple lock on pensions, stating that this is a matter for the manifesto.
Ed Miliband confirmed that his viral encounter with the TikTok personality Feroz Khan was not accidental. At a side event, he revealed that he had to film two takes.
The Guardian's economics editor, Heather Stewart, assessed that the finance minister had offered 'an optimistic vision of a reindustrialised Britain with fresh opportunities for young people, but had given little indication of how he intends to pay for Andy Burnham's radical plans'.
The leader of the SDLP, Claire Hanna, called for an international mediator in the resolution of the ongoing crisis over the unionist parade in the nationalist area near Drumcree, a place of some of the worst violence in the Troubles almost 30 years ago. She said that everyone must want to seek mediation and compromise, and that she is trying to find if there is a small crack on either side that can be used for a decent compromise, so that everyone can leave with their head held high and a sense of their own honour.
