Emmanuel Macron to address parliament following meeting with king – UK politics live

President Macron to address parliament

President Macron will soon address MPs and peers in the Royal Gallery in the Houses of Parliament.

Earlier, on his arrival in the UK, Macron said:

The United Kingdom is a strategic partner, an ally, a friend. Our bond is longstanding, forged by history and strengthened by trust.

Together, we will address the major challenges of our time: security, defence, nuclear energy, space, innovation, artificial intelligence, migration, and culture.

These are all areas in which we seek to act together and deepen our co-operation in a concrete, effective and lasting way.

President Macron and his wife Brigitte in Westminster Abbey this afternoon. Photograph: Suzanne Plunkett/Reuters

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British Museum director says Bayeux Tapestry loan is 'exactly kind of international partnership' museum should champion

In a comment on the Bayeux Tapestry loan (see 4.18pm), Nicholas Cullinan, director of the British Museum, said:

This will be the first time the Bayeux Tapestry has been in the UK since it was made, almost 1000 years ago. We are also delighted to send the Lewis chessmen, and some of our treasures from Sutton Hoo - the greatest archaeological discovery in Britain – to France in return.

This is exactly the kind of international partnership that I want us to champion and take part in: sharing the best of our collection as widely as possible – and in return displaying global treasures never seen here before.

That final sentence may alarm people who are alarmed by reports that the museum is planning to send the Parthenon Marbles to Athens on a long-term loan.

Bayeux Tapestry to go on display in UK for 11 months from next autumn, Starmer and Macron announce

The UK government has just announced that Keir Starmer and President Macron have agreed for the Bayeux Tapestry to go on display in the UK from next autumn. In a news release, the culture department says:

The loan, which will mark the first time the Bayeux Tapestry has been in the UK in nearly 1,000 years, will be displayed in the The Sainsbury Exhibitions Gallery of the British Museum in London between September 2026 and July 2027.

It is expected that the blockbuster exhibition, which will offer the chance to see the Tapestry up close for the first time on UK soil since its creation, will also boost London’s visitor economy.

The 70-metre work, which is more than 900-year-old, depicts the 1066 Norman invasion and Battle of Hastings. The battle saw William the Conquerer take the English throne from Harald Godwinson and become the first Norman King of England. It is widely accepted to have been made in England during the 11th century and was likely to have been commissioned by Bishop Odo of Bayeux. The Tapestry has been on display in various locations in France throughout its history, including most recently at the Bayeux Museum.

In addition to the loan of the Bayeux Tapestry, the British Museum will loan the Sutton Hoo collection, the Lewis Chessmen and other treasures to France. The Sutton Hoo treasures, discovered as part of a seventh century Anglo-Saxon ship burial in Suffolk in 1939, provide remarkable insights into England from a time before the Norman Conquest. Museums in Normandy will host the Sutton Hoo treasures while they are in France.

There was a similar announcement in 2018 – but that visit never materialised.

Macron’s speech to parliament will be “very powerful and very symbolic”, Politico reports, quoting an Elysée Palace source.

MPs and peers have began to gather in Parliament’s Royal Gallery for an address by the French President, Emmanuel Macron, PA Media reports. PA says:

A platform with four chairs and a podium was erected in the southern end of the grand chamber, which features large murals of both the Battle of Trafalgar and the Battle of Waterloo, two great 19th century military defeats for the French at the hands of the British and their allies.

As they filed into the Royal Gallery, passing peers told members of press apocryphal stories that a previous French president requested the murals were covered during a past state visit.

Some peers attributed this to Charles de Gaulle, others to Jacques Chirac.

MPs sat on the right of the chamber facing the platform, while peers sat on the left.

President Macron to address parliament

President Macron will soon address MPs and peers in the Royal Gallery in the Houses of Parliament.

Earlier, on his arrival in the UK, Macron said:

The United Kingdom is a strategic partner, an ally, a friend. Our bond is longstanding, forged by history and strengthened by trust.

Together, we will address the major challenges of our time: security, defence, nuclear energy, space, innovation, artificial intelligence, migration, and culture.

These are all areas in which we seek to act together and deepen our co-operation in a concrete, effective and lasting way.

President Macron and his wife Brigitte in Westminster Abbey this afternoon. Photograph: Suzanne Plunkett/Reuters

Lammy tells MPs UK will take further measures against Israel if ceasefire does not happen soon

David Lammy, the foreign secretary, has been giving evidence to the Commons foreign affairs committee. Here are some of the main points from the hearing.

• Lammy said that the government would take further measures against Israel if a ceasefire does not happen soon. In response to a question from Labour’s Alex Ballinger, who said what was happening in Gaza was an “abomination”, Lammy said the government would take further action against the Israeli government if a ceasefire did not happen within weeks.

• He said the government did not support the Israeli government’s plan to force all Palestinians in Gaza into a camp on the ruins of Rafah.

• He refused to set a timeframe for when the UK would recognise Palestinian statehood, saying he could not “tie myself to a calendar because it’s convenient for a soundbite”. He said:

I’m not going to set it to a set timeframe, because I’ve explained that this is a moving, live situation. There are delicate ceasefire negotiations under way. I’ve explained the issues that sit within that, and whether we will get a… ceasefire. I’m hopeful that we will.

And alongside French and Saudi colleagues, we are discussing recognition, but my indication and my instinct is I actually want things to change the situation on the ground.

I don’t think I and the committee disagree with that, but there will be a judgment call, and I’m not going to tie myself to a calendar because it’s convenient for a soundbite. There’s a judgment call that, quite properly, you would expect the Government to think very hard about.

• He said Britain, France and Germany could apply snapback sanctions on Iran if it tries to revive its ambitions for a nuclear weapon. He said:

Iran face even more pressure in the coming weeks because the E3 can snap back on our sanctions, and it’s not just our sanctions, it’s actually a UN mechanism that would impose dramatic sanctions on Iran across nearly every single front in its economy.

• He claimed Keir Starmer’s embrace of the Volodymy Zelenskyy outside No 10 after the Ukrainian president’s difficult Oval Office meetinng with President Trump “calmed the nerves of the global community”. He explained:

I think after a very difficult meeting between President Trump and President Zelenskyy, I was hugely proud of our prime minister and I think you saw the strength of the relationship that the first place that President Zelensky came to was Number 10, and that embrace outside Number 10 I think also calmed the nerves of the global community frankly and the coalition of the willing was born out of that.

Labour says James McMurdock affair shows Reform UK can't be trusted to uphold 'high standards in public life'

Labour has said the James McMurdock affair show that Nigel Farage cannot be trusted to maintain high standards in public life. Commenting on McMurdock’s statement today (see 2.10pm), Ellie Reeves, the Labour chair, said:

After these serious allegations surfaced, Nigel Farage sat on his hands. He took no action against James McMurdock and instead outsourced the problem – that’s not leadership.

Reform has consistently claimed its vetting procedures are of the highest standards. Yet a man that was jailed for assaulting a woman and is now accused of ripping off taxpayers managed to slip through the net.

James McMurdock’s account of his own affairs doesn’t stack up. Nigel Farage must urgently come clean with the public about what he knew and when. Farage’s Reform has proven once again that they simply cannot uphold the high standards expected in public life.

Thomas says he is sympathetic to inquiry's call for permanent compensation body to be set up for scandals like this

Thomas told MPs that, if another scandal of this type were to happen, he hoped the victims would not need to bring a “traumatic court case” to expose it.

And he said there was another lesson for the future.

If such another scandal happens, government must be set up to offer trusted redress from the very start.

Sir Wyn [Williams] argues that there should be a standing public body to deliver redress in any further scandal. (See 1.18pm.)

I have a considerable amount of sympathy with that argument, but clearly we shall need to analyse the options fully before we commit to it.

The report says, in recommendation 17:

As soon as is reasonably practicable, HM Government shall establish a standing public body which shall, when called upon to do so, devise, administer and deliver schemes for providing financial redress to persons who have been wronged by public bodies.

Relatives of Post Office scandal victims to get compensation if they suffered, as inquiry recommends, MPs told

Thomas told MPs that the Post Office inquiry report showed how “blameless people were impoverished, bankrupted, stressed beyond beliefs, lost their jobs, their marriages, their reputations, their mental health, in some cases lost their lives” because of this scandal.

He said the government inherited a compensation scheme “which was widely seen as too slow, adversarial and legalistic”.

The government has now paid more almost £1.1bn in compensation, he said.

He said the government accepted the recommendation post office operators should be able to accept the best offer under the GLOS compensation scheme – without putting that at risk if go to the independent panel.

And he said the government accepted that compensation should be paid to relatives.

We will provide redress for family members of postmasters who suffered because of the scandal.

I have met the group Lost Chances for postmaster children who have campaigned with considerable courage on this issue.

Sir Wyn rightly recognises that designing a suitable compensation scheme for family members raises some very difficult issues.

Nonetheless, we want to look after those family members who suffered most, meeting Sir Wyn’s recommendation that we should give “redress to close family members of the most adversely affected by Horizon”.

Thomas said this scheme would be open to “close family members of existing Horizon claimants who themselves suffered personal injury, including psychological distress, because of their relative’s suffering”.

He said that, “other than in exceptional circumstances”, people would need to supply “contemporaneous and written evidence” of the injury they suffered.

Post Office minister Gareth Thomas says government 'very sympathetic' to inquiry's recommendations

In the Commons, Gareth Thomas, the business minister responsible for the Post Office, is making a statement about the report out today from the Post Office Horizon inquiry.

He says he is “very sympathetic” to the inquiry’s recommendations.

He says some will require “careful consideration”. But the government will respond to them by 10 October, as Sir Wyn Williams requested, he says. (See 12.47pm.)