Diane
Abbott MP, Labour’s Shadow Home Secretary, responding
to the Home Office consultation on tackling acid attacks, said:

“Unless
there are sufficient officers to enforce the law, new legislation will have a
limited effect.

“The truth is that offenders feel enabled to
commit these types of crime because they don’t fear being caught. If the Tories
were serious about cracking down on these horrendous crimes they’d match
Labour’s pledge to put 10,000 extra officers on our streets to protect
communities.”

“The nuclear deal agreed with Iran in 2015 was one
of the crowning diplomatic achievements of this century to date; a crucial step
in stopping Iran from becoming a nuclear power and creating a North Korea-style
crisis in the heart of the Middle East. As the IAEA has repeatedly
demonstrated, and as the US State Department accepts, Iran has fully complied
with every dot and comma of that deal.

“So it is an act of wanton vandalism for Donald
Trump to jeopardise the future of that deal today, and to move the goalposts by
linking it to important but utterly extraneous issues around Iran’s wider
activities in the region. It is also totally disingenuous to suggest that the
deal just needs to be fixed, when the only evidence that it is any way broken
is inside Donald Trump’s head.

“Yet sadly, this kind of reckless and thoughtless
behaviour is what we have come to expect from this President. From the Paris
climate change deal to US membership of Unesco, he has demonstrated a flagrant
disregard for the institutions and agreements that bind the international
community together in the shared pursuit of a better future. That is not what
we expect from the President of the United States, and it is high time for the
British government to tell him so.

“Because yet again, this shows that the strategy
of kow-towing and hand-holding operated by the Prime Minister and Foreign
Secretary has utterly failed, and they have once more allowed our so-called
closest ally to treat them like fools. When he fooled Theresa May and Boris
Johnson on climate change, we can say shame on him, but now the same pair have
been fooled on Iran as well, we can only say shame on them.”

Peter Dowd MP, Labour’s Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, responding to Philip Hammond’s remarks calling the EU “the enemy”, said:

“These are foolish remarks by Philip Hammond, and reveal that he is clearly feeling the pressure from Tory MPs calling for him to be sacked. The tone of this rhetoric will obviously not unblock negotiations or help protect our economic interests.

“The Chancellor should be putting the country before the infighting in his own party when he is representing us overseas, and refrain from acting like Basil Fawlty on holiday. It is vital that these negotiations do not lead to a situation where Britain crashes out of the EU without a deal, risking jobs and living standards.

“This weak government has squandered the past months of the Brexit negotiations, squabbling with each other rather than trying to get the best deal for Britain. If they are not up to the job then they should step aside and let Labour take over.”

Barbara
Keeley MP,
Labour’s Shadow Cabinet Minister for Social Care, commenting on new
figures for delayed transfers of care due to a lack of social care, said:

“It
is worrying that the number of days that patients are stuck in hospital
due to a lack of social care has increased by more than a quarter since last
year.“

“Delayed
days caused by patients waiting for care packages at home and in care homes and
nursing homes have also increased this month, yet we still see no action from
the Tory Government to deal with the social care crisis.

“A
Labour Government would provide the urgent additional funding needed to deal
with the crisis in social care.”

Rebecca Long-Bailey MP,
Labour’s Shadow Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial
Strategy, commenting on the Government’s energy price cap announcement, said:

“The price cap legislation introduced today is
wholly inadequate and
proof that the Tories have broken their promise to help consumers.

“It has no detail on the cap, what level it will be
at, how it is to be calculated or whether consumers will receive the £100
savings they were promised. It passes the buck yet again to Ofgem.

“It does not even guarantee when the cap will be
introduced. And there is no reform of the market just an overall review which
will be drawn out.

“Labour would introduce an immediate emergency
price cap to ensure that the average dual-fuel household energy bill remains
below £1,000 per year, while we transition to a fairer system for bill payers.”