New: Jo White, the migration minister, has warned that weakening "earned settlement" plans could cause a major fall in the number of social care workers. She said giving indefinite leave to remain to those who came through a specific social care visa route between 2022 and 2024 might lead to a "spiral" in people quitting the profession. Ministers are considering retrospectively raising the number of years a migrant must have lived in the UK from five years to ten or 15, in order to qualify. Angela Rayner, the communities secretary, warned the move would unfairly hit social care workers. White said the government was considering its approach following a consultation that closed in February. However, she added that handing 600,000 social care workers and their dependents who applied over two years the chance to gain permanent residency could cause many of them to quit the profession. She told a Fabian Society fringe event: "We have, rather than looked to see where our skills gaps are, we've constantly imported from abroad and this is why we're in this situation and why we've got a crisis in the care sector... "I don't want us to get into that spiral where people move out of the care sector because they've got [indefinite] leave to remain. And this is what we hear from people coming from other countries, that they're here to work, but they then want to go on to other things."

Shabana Mahmood has dropped her original plans to bar migrants from claiming benefits after securing permanent residency. The consultation floated making them wait until British citizenship to access welfare.

Exclusive: Nigel Farage's "physical altercation" during the State Opening of Parliament was with the Lib Dem MP Caroline Voaden - and has caused an major row between Reform and the Lib Dems. Lib Dem sources say Voaden was left "shocked and shaken" after he "shoved" her to secure a place in the procession of MPs to the King's Speech. Video from the Commons Chamber that day shows Farage and Voaden making their way down from their benches together. Voaden reported the incident to the Serjeant at Arms and says Farage was asked to apologise - but hasn't. A Reform spokesman denies any wrongdoing by Farage, saying "it was the Lib Dem MPs being aggressive towards Nigel". Lib Dems say that is "utter nonsense" Farage said yesterday that the "physical altercation" was the reason he didn't put up a fight to be in the Chamber for the Budget after his prayer card to save a space was removed. He said he thought that after the row with Voaden, it was "better to avoid conflict". But in a further twist, a Commons spokesman says Farage's card was only removed because it didn't have a date stamp, which are required to reserve a spot. Top work by @hope_sapphire here:

Uh oh… after John Healey clearly promised on @BBCr4today that the benefits bill will be cut before the next election, @ChrisMasonBBC tells listeners the Treasury have since been on the phone disputing he said this and that he wasn’t putting a timeline on welfare reductions.