This blog will be closing shortly. Thank you for following the updates and all your comments below the line. You can keep up to date with the Guardian’s UK politics reporting here. Here is a summary of today’s key developments: Labour will seek to persuade people living near proposed pylon routes and other renewable energy infrastructure that the developments are critical to bring down bills and tackle carbon emissions, the energy secretary said. Ed Miliband promised to consider new benefits for communities affected by the construction of renewable energy infrastructure, and community ownership of the assets, which could include onshore windfarms and solar farms. The healthcare regulator is so badly run that patients in England cannot trust the safety ratings it issues for hospitals, care homes or GP practices, the health secretary has said. Wes Streeting said the Care Quality Commission (CQC) was in such deep crisis it was not able to do its basic job reliably. His warning came after an interim report by the public care doctor Penny Dash found the CQC was plagued by low levels of physical inspections, a lack of consistency in assessments and problems with a faltering IT system. The government will not be “passing the buck” on building renewable energy infrastructure to future generations, the energy minister Michael Shanks said on Friday. Shanks also told MPs that some areas will have to host “nationally significant” power infrastructure such as solar farms in response to concerns expressed about the “detrimental impacts” on communities. Rachel Reeves is expected to reveal a £20bn hole in government spending for essential public services on Monday, paving the way for potential tax rises in the autumn budget. Labour sources said the blame lay with the Tory government, describing it as a “shocking inheritance” and accusing the former chancellor of “presiding over a black hole and still campaigning for tax cuts”. Mel Stride has become the fourth Conservative MP to announce they are joining the race for the party’s leadership. The former work and pensions secretary told BBC Breakfast on Friday he has been “fully nominated” as a candidate, joining Tom Tugendhat, James Cleverly and Robert Jenrick in the race to replace Rishi Sunak as Tory leader. Stride, the MP for Central Devon, said he believed he was the right person to “unite the party”. The prime minister Keir Starmer’s spokesperson has said that the government will not proceed with efforts to question whether the international criminal court (ICC) has jurisdiction to issue arrest warrants for the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and the defence minister, Yoav Gallant. “On the ICC submission … I can confirm the government will not be pursuing (the proposal) in line with our longstanding position that this is a matter for the court to decide on,” the spokesperson told reporters on Friday. The assisted dying bill has officially been introduced in the House of Lords as the health secretary said it is “a debate whose time has come”. Lord Falconer’s private member’s bill – the assisted dying for terminally ill adults bill – was read out at the start of business in the House of Lords on Friday, and is expected to be debated in mid-November. Powers introduced by the Conservatives to protect freedom of speech in universities have been halted by the new government in a dramatic about-turn, paving the way for ministers to scrap the legislation. Only days before it was due to come into force, the education secretary said she had decided to “stop further commencement of the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023, in order to consider options, including its repeal”. In response, the shadow education secretary, Damian Hinds, accused the government of being willing to “sacrifice the next generation on the altar of their own ideological dogma”. Kemi Badenoch has accused one of her Conservative leadership rivals of a dirty tricks campaign against her as she continues to consider a bid for the top job. The shadow business secretary attacked her critics after a dossier was circulated claiming she was behind anonymous blog comments written 17 years ago in which the author celebrated being rude and made abusive remarks. Green party co-leader Adrian Ramsay called on MPs to “move beyond some of the comments made” about his stance on a string of pylons along England’s east coast. Making his maiden speech in the House of Commons on Friday, the Waveney Valley MP said he welcomes the government’s plan to scale-up renewable energy generation but added Whitehall must turn its attention towards adapting and mitigating “climate breakdown”. At Wednesday’s PMQs, Keir Starmer said Ramsay had opposed “vital clean energy in his own constituency” and added: “He talks about leadership, and I’d ask him to show some.” People who lost relatives from the infected blood scandal will be able to apply for interim compensation payments from the autumn, a minister told the Commons on Friday. Nick Thomas-Symonds, who as paymaster general is a senior minister in the Cabinet Offic, also reiterated the government’s commitment to enacting the findings of the report into what happened. Prime minister Keir Starmer changed his travel plans to get to the Olympics on Friday after Eurostar trains were disrupted due to sabotage attacks against French rail networks, Downing Street said. Starmer was meant to be travelling on the cross-Channel rail service from London to Paris for the Olympics opening ceremony, in his first visit to France since being elected earlier this month. But a spokesperson said he flew instead due to the delays and cancellations. David Lammy has urged China to prevent its companies from supporting Russia’s war effort, the Foreign Office has said after the minister held his first meeting with his Beijing counterpart since Labour entered government. GCSE exams “dominate” the education system and should be scrapped by the new government, the Tory architect of the qualification said on Friday. Kenneth Baker oversaw the introduction of GCSEs while serving as education secretary in the government of Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s. But Baker described the level of testing on students as “absolutely absurd” and said GCSEs should become a “victim” of the curriculum and assessment review announced by the new Labour administration. Former Conservative party chairman Richard Holden said energy ministers have “refused to repeat this claim” that Labour’s clean energy plans will knock £300 off bills. Holden told the Commons on Friday that “Downing Street have been saying one thing, [energy minister Michael Shanks’] department have been saying another”. Shanks, replied: “I think it does take a bit of a brass neck to come here and talk about bringing down bills when the government that he supported for a long time saw those skyrocket.” The SNP is heading towards the opposition benches at Holyrood if it does not address the internal “culture of hate”, Joanna Cherry has said. The former SNP MP, who lost her Edinburgh South West seat to Labour at the general election, said she will be stepping away from frontline politics to “reflect” on the future of her party. The cost of England’s four biggest killer diseases could rise to £86bn a year by 2050, prompting calls for a crackdown on alcohol, junk food and smoking. The ageing population means the annual cost of cancer, heart disease, dementia and stroke combined will go from the £51.9bn recorded in 2018 to £85.6bn in 2050 – a rise of 61%. The “writing is on the wall for greyhound racing”, an MSP has said as a bill aiming to ban the sport in Scotland gained enough support to proceed at Holyrood. Mid Scotland and Fife Green MSP Mark Ruskell said his member’s bill had won the backing of enough colleagues at the Scottish parliament to allow it to be introduced. A justice minister has volunteered to wear an alcohol monitoring tag used to help cut re-offending rates for prison leavers. James Timpson said he expects to gain “first-hand insight” from wearing the device, which he said gives people a chance to “rewrite their behaviour”.