Sir Tony Blair has warned that Sir Keir Starmer will have to put up taxes by more than £50 billion unless he comes up with radical new ways to improve productivity.

The chief economist at the former prime minister’s institute forecast that taxes would have to go up by 1.9 percentage points of GDP by the end of the Parliament to stabilise debt.

Tax rises would also be needed to meet increasing health costs caused by an ageing society, to plug the decreasing tax take from oil and gas as part of the transition to net zero and to avoid austerity, a report from the Tony Blair Institute says.

It suggests Sir Tony does not believe Sir Keir’s growth agenda will be enough to meet the challenges of the future. In a speech at a conference in London on Tuesday, the former prime minister will call for greater use of artificial intelligence to boost growth.

“Britain is facing an unenviable triple whammy of high taxes, heavy debt and poor outcomes,” he will say. “And worse is to come with the demographics of an ageing population against us, deep structural health problems and rising numbers of long-term sick.

“The simple and unavoidable truth is that, unless we improve growth and productivity and drive value and efficiency through our public spending, we’re going to become poorer. Much poorer.”

Sir Keir has appointed a number of key figures from Sir Tony’s time in office, such Douglas Alexander, who is now a business minister, and Jacqui Smith, the higher education minister.

The fiscal calculations are contained in a report titled The Economic Case for Reimagining the State by Tom Smith, the Tony Blair Institute’s director of economic policy. He said productivity improvements were vital because of the pressures of an ageing society and lower tax revenues from oil and gas.

“Many of these challenges are not unique to the UK but, without a change in approach, taxes will need to rise by 1.9 percentage points of GDP by the end of this Parliament, three percentage points cumulatively by the end of the next Parliament and 4.5 percentage points cumulatively by 2040,” he said.

Based on the Office for Budget Responsibility figures for 2024-25, the size of the economy is £2.8 trillion. A rise of 1.9 percentage points of GDP would be equivalent to around £53 billion.

Mr Smith said some of the productivity increases needed could be achieved by speeding up house-building, reforming infrastructure planning and improving relations with the European Union.

But he said this would not be enough to avoid large tax rises, saying AI must also be harnessed to drive growth. The report suggested using such technology to enable up to a million public sector workers to be cut – one in six of the workforce.

Sir Tony will say: “There is only one game-changer – harnessing effectively the 21st-century technological revolution. There is absolutely no doubt that this is an era of transformation. 

“Things which were impossible will become possible, advances that would have taken decades will happen in a few years or even months, the value we can add, the improvements in efficiency we can make, the radical benefits in outcomes we can secure, could be truly revolutionary.”

Mr Smith’s report found that more than 40 per cent of tasks performed by public sector workers could be partly automated by AI and robotics, saving a fifth of their time.

Once adjusted for unpaid overtime, a sixth of all work done by public sector workers such as civil servants, nurses and police officers would be freed up, creating a “dividend” that could be used to boost front-line numbers or reduce workers to cut debt.

The report said public sector workers’ productivity had been flat for more than 25 years but that the workforce had grown by 500,000 to six million over that time.

Another report by the Tony Blair Institute included modelling on the economic benefits of preventing ill-health, such as heart disease, cancer and musculoskeletal disorders. 

Around five per cent of people aged 50 to 64 will leave their job within any given year, but this jumps to 13 per cent among people with heart disease and 23 per cent of those who have had a stroke.

The analysis found that cutting rates of heart disease by a fifth, such as through the use of statins, would boost the economy by £2.2 billion within five years and mean 50,000 extra people were still in work.

Sir Keir Starmer sparked a row on Monday by appointing a women’s minister who said that there are many definitions of a woman.

JK Rowling, Martina Navratilova and other feminist campaigners attacked the Prime Minister’s decision to appoint Anneliese Dodds as the women and equalities minister.

In an interview on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour in 2022, Ms Dodds said there are “different definitions legally around what a woman actually is”. When asked again, she said: “I think it does depend what the context is.”

She has also pledged that Labour is “committed to modernising the Gender Recognition Act”, saying the current process was “intrusive, outdated and humiliating”.

It comes after months of criticism of Sir Keir’s stance on gender issues. He had previously said it was “wrong” for one of his MPs to say only a woman has a cervix, and last year said 99.9 per cent of women do not have a penis. He has since changed his stance and said biological men should not be allowed to use women’s lavatories.

After Ms Dodds’ appointment, Rowling described her previous comments as “nonsensical”. The Harry Potter author, who gave Labour £1 million in 2008, has accused it of having “abandoned” her and others campaigning for women’s rights.

Writing in the Times, she said she would struggle to vote for Sir Keir, saying she had a “poor opinion” of his character and accusing the party of a “dismissive and often offensive” approach to women’s concerns under his leadership.

Rowling has become known as a fierce advocate of the rights of biological women after criticising Scottish Government proposals to introduce self-identification for transgender people.

Ms Navratilova, the nine-times Wimbledon singles champion and another prominent gender-critical campaigner, responded to the announcement by tweeting: “Dodds is just awful…”

Susan Hall, the former Tory London mayoral candidate, said: “Women need someone to defend their spaces, not someone who cannot even properly define them.”

Sir Keir announced that Bridget Phillipson, the Education Secretary, would also have the title minister for women and equalities because the title legally has to be held by someone of secretary of state rank.

Ms Dodds will take the lead on equalities issues even though she is only a minister of state. She will attend Cabinet.

She had said in opposition that she was going to be the first Secretary of State for Women and Equalities. Instead, she will combine her equalities role with that of aid minister, in what will be seen as a significant downgrading of the position from pre-election promises.

Tess White, a Tory member of the Scottish Parliament, said: “In March 2022, on International Women’s Day, Anneliese Dodds could not define what a woman is while being interviewed on Woman’s Hour. Shockingly, she said ‘woman’ can mean ‘all kinds of things’. She is now Minister for Women and Equalities. That should alarm us all.”

Ms Phillipson has also been criticised for her approach to women’s issues after she refused eight times to say whether a biological male should be able to use a women’s lavatory during an interview with LBC radio in the run-up to the election.

Joan Smith, the journalist and author, tweeted: “Biological reality, and Labour MPs who recognise it, snubbed by Keir Starmer. Dodds and Phillipson now in position to carry out manifesto commitments opposed by thousands, if not millions, of women. I knew he couldn’t be trusted.”

A spokesman for the What Is A Woman campaign said: “The Government will be judged on its actions. The Prime Minister promised voters to protect singles-sex spaces for biological women and ban the teaching of gender ideology in schools. He and Dodds must now uphold that promise in law.”

Maya Forstater, the chief executive of Sex Matters, a women’s rights charity, said: “The prominence of sex-based rights during the election campaign showed that most people think genuinely single-sex spaces are essential, and that the Government should move swiftly to fix the legal muddle that means service providers are frightened to provide them.

“However Sir Keir decides to organise the women and equalities brief, we look forward to working with the incoming administration to ensure that the law works to guarantee women’s safety, dignity and privacy and to protect everyone’s human rights.”

Wimbledon has suggested the weather rather than competition from other events or a lack of star players is to blame for a dip in attendances at this year’s tournament.

Fewer visitors were recorded on every day of the tournament’s opening week, except for Tuesday when Andy Murray, the two-time Wimbledon champion, was expected to play in the first round of the men’s singles.

Tournament records reveal 282,955 fans had passed through SW19, around 10,000 fewer than in 2023, a near 4 per cent drop.

Torrential downpours had certainly dampened enthusiasm from expectant visitors with nearly a month’s worth of rain (38.6 mm) falling in the space of a single week, according to Met Office data, recorded at nearby Kew Gardens.

Friday alone saw half a month’s worth of rainfall (26.6mm) in a single day and the lowest attendance on Wimbledon’s fifth day (36,360) since 1998 – excluding the pandemic-restricted 2021 tournament.

As the second week of the tournament began Sally Bolton, head of the All England club, denied Wimbledon had lost its allure for fans following the absence of stars like Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Serena Williams.

She said: “This year the weather has been so variable and so bad at times that I think at the moment our assessment is it’s almost certainly the weather that’s impacting [attendance].

She added: “I think the real challenge for everyone is the variability of the weather.

“Even those who are just using weather apps can see that you are coming in, looking two days ahead and it looks like it’s getting better and then it changes.”

“None of us had seen how excited people would become about the likes of [Carlos] Alcaraz [the defending Wimbledon champion] and [Jannik] Sinner [the World number one] and others.

“There is genuine excitement about this new generation.”

However in a week featuring a general election and Euro 2024, Ms Bolton said it was becoming increasingly difficult to grab viewers attention.

She added: “I think the broader challenge for tennis and sport is that competition for people’s attention and time is just ever greater from a whole range of different things.”

Ms Bolton dismissed concerns that the semi-final clash between England and the Netherlands on Wednesday would affect Wimbledon attendance, commenting: “I am not concerned about a football impact.

“At this point, I am still concerned about it still raining”.

England’s Euro 2024 quarter-final victory against Switzerland on Saturday was watched on BBC One by a peak audience of 16.8 million people.

Challenging tournament

Asked if this was the most challenging tournament to schedule since her tenure began, in 2020, Ms Bolton replied: “Probably from a scheduling standpoint and just the unpredictability of the weather, it just means that when you are looking ahead to a day, you start with a plan in mind and the rain really is quite unpredictable.”

A total of 79 matches have been cancelled so far, many of them junior players owing to a combination of the weather and player injuries.

Ms Bolton said they were prepared to accept fluctuations in attendance because of tickets being held back for its famous queue.

She added: “The weather has been so terrible that perseverance in the queue has been even greater this year than it ordinarily is.

“We’re never about maximising our attendances, we’re all about protecting the queue and making sure that we have still got that accessibility, accepting that, as a result of that, [there is] some variability on the numbers that we will end up achieving.”

“Every year when we get back to the end of the championships we look back and try and analyse the data to understand what might drive that.”

The weather for the tennis does not look likely to improve immediately, as yellow weather warnings for rain have been issued by the forecaster across parts of southern England and south Wales on Monday night and in northern Scotland on Tuesday night.

Andrea Bishop, of the Met Office, said: “It has been a damp start to Wimbledon, with more than double the rainfall we’d expect to see over the Greater London area in the first week.

“It is the influence of low pressure which has been bringing periods of rain, and this doesn’t look like it’s changing over the next couple of days.

“But, there is some good news for fans, as there is a signal towards drier conditions overall by the weekend.

“Although there should be some sunny spells, there will still be showers in places with temperatures generally below average for the time of year.”

Sir Keir Starmer sparked a row on Monday by appointing a women’s minister who said that there are many definitions of a woman.

JK Rowling, Martina Navratilova and other feminist campaigners attacked the Prime Minister’s decision to appoint Anneliese Dodds as the women and equalities minister.

In an interview on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour in 2022, Ms Dodds said there are “different definitions legally around what a woman actually is”. When asked again, she said: “I think it does depend what the context is.”

She has also pledged that Labour is “committed to modernising the Gender Recognition Act”, saying the current process was “intrusive, outdated and humiliating”.

It comes after months of criticism of Sir Keir’s stance on gender issues. He had previously said it was “wrong” for one of his MPs to say only a woman has a cervix, and last year said 99.9 per cent of women do not have a penis. He has since changed his stance and said biological men should not be allowed to use women’s lavatories.

After Ms Dodds’ appointment, Rowling described her previous comments as “nonsensical”. The Harry Potter author, who gave Labour £1 million in 2008, has accused it of having “abandoned” her and others campaigning for women’s rights.

Writing in the Times, she said she would struggle to vote for Sir Keir, saying she had a “poor opinion” of his character and accusing the party of a “dismissive and often offensive” approach to women’s concerns under his leadership.

Rowling has become known as a fierce advocate of the rights of biological women after criticising Scottish Government proposals to introduce self-identification for transgender people.

Ms Navratilova, the nine-times Wimbledon singles champion and another prominent gender-critical campaigner, responded to the announcement by tweeting: “Dodds is just awful…”

Susan Hall, the former Tory London mayoral candidate, said: “Women need someone to defend their spaces, not someone who cannot even properly define them.”

Sir Keir announced that Bridget Phillipson, the Education Secretary, would also have the title minister for women and equalities because the title legally has to be held by someone of secretary of state rank.

Ms Dodds will take the lead on equalities issues even though she is only a minister of state. She will attend Cabinet.

She had said in opposition that she was going to be the first Secretary of State for Women and Equalities. Instead, she will combine her equalities role with that of aid minister, in what will be seen as a significant downgrading of the position from pre-election promises.

Tess White, a Tory member of the Scottish Parliament, said: “In March 2022, on International Women’s Day, Anneliese Dodds could not define what a woman is while being interviewed on Woman’s Hour. Shockingly, she said ‘woman’ can mean ‘all kinds of things’. She is now Minister for Women and Equalities. That should alarm us all.”

Ms Phillipson has also been criticised for her approach to women’s issues after she refused eight times to say whether a biological male should be able to use a women’s lavatory during an interview with LBC radio in the run-up to the election.

Joan Smith, the journalist and author, tweeted: “Biological reality, and Labour MPs who recognise it, snubbed by Keir Starmer. Dodds and Phillipson now in position to carry out manifesto commitments opposed by thousands, if not millions, of women. I knew he couldn’t be trusted.”

A spokesman for the What Is A Woman campaign said: “The Government will be judged on its actions. The Prime Minister promised voters to protect singles-sex spaces for biological women and ban the teaching of gender ideology in schools. He and Dodds must now uphold that promise in law.”

Maya Forstater, the chief executive of Sex Matters, a women’s rights charity, said: “The prominence of sex-based rights during the election campaign showed that most people think genuinely single-sex spaces are essential, and that the Government should move swiftly to fix the legal muddle that means service providers are frightened to provide them.

“However Sir Keir decides to organise the women and equalities brief, we look forward to working with the incoming administration to ensure that the law works to guarantee women’s safety, dignity and privacy and to protect everyone’s human rights.”

A 14-year-old girl was stabbed to death at home after a confrontation with her parents, a court has heard.

Scarlett Vickers suffered a single stab wound to the chest in the incident at a semi-detached house in Darlington, County Durham on Friday evening.

Her parents Simon Vickers, 49, who works for the 3M manufacturing plant in Newton Aycliffe, and Sarah Hall, 44, who is unemployed, appeared in court on Monday morning charged with her murder.

Sarah Kemp, the prosecutor, told Newton Aycliffe magistrates’ court that the fatal stabbing had followed an incident at the family home.

Georgia Snowden, representing the victim’s mother, told the court her client disputed the facts of the prosecution case and was “absolutely distraught”.

Police and paramedics were called to Geneva Road, Darlington, just after 11pm but Scarlett was pronounced dead at the scene.

Both defendants were dressed in grey police-issue sweatshirts and trousers and Ms Hall shook throughout the five-minute hearing.

Ms Kemp told the court: “There was an incident at the home address in Darlington resulting in the fatal stabbing of Scarlett, the 14-year-old daughter of both defendants.

“She suffered a single knife wound to the chest resulting in her death. This is not a matter that can be dealt with here and I ask the case be sent to the crown court.”

Steven Hudd, the district judge, told Mr Vickers and Ms Hall: “The offence of murder is one which can only be heard at crown court. I am sending your case to Teesside Crown Court for a plea and case management hearing on Aug 5.”

He said if either defendant wished to make a bail application, there would be an opportunity to do so on Wednesday – but they were remanded in custody until then.

Det Supt Craig Rudd, the senior investigating officer, said: “This incident has resulted in the tragic death of a young girl, and our thoughts are with her family and friends.

“I would like to thank the local community for their patience and co-operation while investigative work is still being carried out at the scene, and to reassure residents that we believe this to be an isolated incident.”

Neighbours spoke of their “utter shock” following the death of the teenager.

Floral tributes were placed outside the house, some by teenage girls who were school friends of Scarlett’s.

One message read: “To Scarlett. Rest easy sweet girl, we all love and miss you. Sleep well from Demi and Lexi.”

‘Sad and shocking’

A neighbour said: “It’s hard to take in. Simon has a good job and his partner comes across as very pleasant as well, she would always smile and say hello.

“It’s hard to imagine what could have happened for things to go as wrong as this. The first anyone knew was when the police cars and ambulance arrived.”

Another neighbour said: “I spoke with Sarah earlier that day, we were talking about shopping. I used to see their daughter playing in the garden, they’ve always seemed like a pleasant family. It’s such a shock that a young girl’s life has been lost in that way.

“It’s incredibly sad and I think most of us who live nearby are struggling to get it out of our heads. It’s been an utter shock.”

In a tribute posted to its website, Haughton Academy in Darlington said Scarlett was a “lovely girl and important member” of the school community.

The statement continued: “She was always immaculately turned out, respectful and polite.

“A very friendly girl with a great sense of humour, she was popular with her friends and will be greatly missed by everyone at school.

“Staff and pupils at Haughton Academy and the Education Village Academy Trust are extremely saddened by the news and we would like to pass on our thoughts to everyone affected by this tragedy.”