Ministers are scrambling to avoid a damaging rebellion this summer when MPs vote on controversial cuts to disability benefit payments, even offering potential rebels the chance to miss the vote altogether.

The government is due to hold a vote in June and dozens of Labour MPs are worried it will hurt their constituents and could cost them their seats.

Possible solutions include allowing backbenchers to abstain – a major climbdown from earlier votes, when rebels were disciplined or suspended from the party. Ministers are also looking for ways to mitigate the cuts with extra spending on measures to tackle child poverty, including extra benefits payments for poorer parents of children under five.

One Labour MP said: “When people abstained on the winter fuel vote, they were warned that it had been taken by the leadership as voting against the government. This time, however, a number of MPs have been offered the opportunity to abstain.”

Government sources said whipping arrangements had not yet been decided for the vote in two months’ time, but did not deny that potential rebels had been offered the opportunity to abstain.

The cuts to benefits have become one of the biggest sources of tension within the Labour party since it came to power. In recent months, backbenchers have been stripped of potential privileges for abstaining on a vote to remove the household cap on winter fuel payments, while several were suspended last summer for defying the whip over the two-child benefit cap.

The vote in June over £4.8bn worth of cuts to disability payments is expected to trigger an even bigger backlash from within the parliamentary party. Disgruntled backbenchers say as many as 55 MPs are prepared to rebel at that vote, with more than 100 others still considering their position. Recent analysis by the Disability Poverty Campaign Group showed more than 80 Labour MPs have a majority which is smaller than the number of their constituents who could lose some or all of their benefits.

Labour backbenchers are also irritated that they are being asked to vote on the package without an assessment from the Office for Budget Responsibility on how effective the government’s back to work scheme will prove. One MP said: “The obvious truth is that people will lose money under these proposals – including those who clearly don’t deserve to. This can’t simply be spun away. The mood in Westminster may seem calm, but this issue isn’t going to fade quietly.”

As well as offering MPs a chance to abstain on June’s vote, ministers are hoping to win favour among backbenchers with a separate package on child poverty which is likely to propose increasing benefits for poorer parents of young children.

Liz Kendall, the work and pensions secretary, will announce the government’s child poverty strategy about the same time as the benefits vote, and is looking for ways to lift children out of poverty without entirely removing the two-child benefit cap. Kendall recently told the Mirror she would consider it a personal failure if child poverty was not lower by the next election.

The Guardian revealed this year Kendall was particularly interested in proposals to boost the incomes of parents of children under five, which is likely to cost less than the £3.6bn it would take to remove the cap altogether.

Officials are looking at a suggestion promoted by the Fabian Society thinktank to increase universal credit payments for parents of babies and toddlers.

The group found that ministers could reduce child poverty by 280,000 by doubling the child element of universal credit for those with children under one, while raising it by 50% for those with children between one and four. Doing so would give parents of babies an extra £293 per month, and those of toddlers an extra £146 per month, at a cost of £2.4bn a year.

Alternatively, increasing the payment by £20 a week for those with babies and £10 a week for those with toddlers would lift 80,000 children out of poverty at a cost of £715m a year.

The Fabians recommended paying for the move by reducing or ending the marriage tax allowance, through which married couples can share part of their tax-free allowance.

Officials said they were looking at any suggestion that could be shown to take children out of poverty. One said: “There are a lot of discussions and options on the table for what that might look like.”

Ministers held a series of meetings with MPs to discuss the welfare changes in the days before the Easter recess in an attempt to take the wind out of any rebellion this summer.

At the same time, anti-poverty charities are holding private briefings for MPs to lay out the likely implications of the welfare reductions.

One MP said the sessions they had became a forum for backbenchers to vent their anger at the government’s actions. “There is a serious depth of concern about how we got into this mess,” they said. “There’s a growing sense of frustration that the leadership simply isn’t listening.”

Others in the party have become irritated at what they see as an organised campaign to exaggerate the impact of the changes. “The network tend to get together, message each other and get terribly worried about these proposals,” said one MP. “But nothing that’s been sent to me has given me hard evidence of cases that are at risk of really losing out.”

Four people have died and one is seriously injured after a cable car crashed to the ground near Naples in southern Italy on Thursday, mountain rescue services and firefighters said.

The accident happened at Monte Faito, a peak 28 miles (45km) south-east of Naples.

“The cabin at the top has crashed,” said Umberto De Gregorio, the chair of EAV, the public transport company that runs the cable car service. He called it “a tragedy”.

Italian media reports said one of the cables supporting the cabin had snapped. Sixteen passengers were helped out of a cabin that stopped in mid-air near the foot of the mountain. They were evacuated one by one, using harnesses, footage on Rai public television and other media showed.

Vincenzo De Luca, the head of the Campania region around Naples, told Rai that rescue operations were hampered by fog and high winds.

In 2021 14 people died when a cable car linking Lake Maggiore with a nearby mountain plunged to the ground in northern Italy.

NHS bosses are scrambling to overhaul guidelines for single-sex spaces in thousands of hospitals and GP surgeries after the equality watchdog warned they would be pursued if they fail to do so.

The British Transport Police became the first to change policies on Thursday amid the fallout from the supreme court ruling on the legal definition of a woman, piling pressure on the health service and other organisations to revamp their guidance.

Current NHS guidance in England says trans people should be accommodated based on how they dress, their names and their pronouns. Under Wednesday’s ruling that a woman is defined by biological sex under the Equality Act 2010, this would be scrapped.

Senior NHS legal officials and estates and facilities managers are racing to draw up proposals for how hospitals, community care centres and GP practices should reflect the ruling, sources told the Guardian.

The ruling poses a challenge for the NHS, which has an estate spanning 25m square metres in England alone, with infrastructure repair bills of more than £14bn. The issue is further complicated by the fact that health policy and spending is devolved in Wales and Scotland.

Kishwer Falkner, the chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Thursday: “They [the NHS] have to change it. They now have clarity.

“There is no confusion as of yesterday, at 10.30 in the morning, and they can start to implement the new legal reasoning and produce their exceptions forthwith, but they have to change it. We will be having conversations with them to update that guidance.”

Asked if the EHRC would pursue the matter if the NHS did not do so, she replied: “Yes, we will.”

An NHS England spokesperson said: “The NHS is currently reviewing guidance on same-sex accommodation and, as part of this process, will consider and take into account all relevant legislation and [Wednesday’s] ruling.”

Meanwhile, the BTP, which patrols the railways in Great Britain, announced that male officers would conduct intimate searches of trans women “in accordance with the biological birth sex of the detainee”, while trans men would be searched by female officers.

Under the force’s previous policy, officers had been told that anyone in custody with a gender recognition certificate would be searched by an officer matching a detainee’s acquired gender.

The update comes during a legal battle between gender-critical campaigners and the force over its guidance that allowed transgender officers to strip-search women, so long as the officer held a gender recognition certificate.

The rapid change of approach came after Lady Falkner said the EHRC would be issuing updated and legally binding codes of practice on single-sex spaces and services in the wake of the “enormously consequential” court ruling.

“We are going to have a new statutory code of practice [meaning] it will be interpreted by courts as the law of the land. We’re hoping we’re going to have that by the summer,” she told Today.

She said the judgment meant only biological women could use single-sex changing rooms and women’s toilets, or participate in women-only sporting events and teams, or be placed in women’s wards in hospitals.

Even so, the commission “will not tolerate” discrimination or harassment of trans people, which remains unlawful under the Equality Act, and would support trans women taking out equal pay claims under sex discrimination laws.

Falkner said the ruling was “a victory for common sense” but “only if you recognise that trans people exist, they have rights and their rights must be respected. Then it becomes a victory for common sense.”

The UK government has avoided making any substantial comment on the ruling, but a strong indication of Labour’s approach came from Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, who swung the party behind the supreme court and the EHRC’s stance.

Previously a supporter of self-identification for trans people, Sarwar said there was now a need for an “urgent” update of Scotland’s policies on single-sex spaces. Scottish ministers are expected to update Holyrood next week on their response to the ruling.

“I’ve always said that we should protect single-sex spaces on the basis of all biological sex,” he said during a visit in Falkirk. “There’s a clear ruling now from the supreme court.”

The bulk of the reaction from Westminster politicians continued to come from the Conservatives. Speaking during a local elections campaign visit to Cambridgeshire, Kemi Badenoch, the Tory leader, said the court decision was a vindication of their views.

She said she would support changes to the Equality Act and Gender Recognition Act to cement the court’s view. “These laws were written 20 years ago plus when the world was different. A lot of people are trying to change what the law means,” she said.

In contrast, there was little sign of how ministers will help institutions navigate the new framework. Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, on a visit to Scunthorpe, dodged some questions on the issue, saying only that more advice would come in “due course”.

Among the issues that will need to be tackled is provision of toilet facilities for transgender people, given the EHRC said the ruling means they will not be able to use single-sex toilets.

A directive introduced by Badenoch when she was equalities minister last year requires new public buildings such as offices and shopping centres to prioritise single-sex toilets, and to provide universal toilets only “where space allows”.

That regulation remains in force, meaning public buildings could become increasingly inaccessible for transgender users.

Trans women arrested on Britain’s railways will in future be strip-searched by male officers in an updated policy after a landmark ruling by the supreme court.

The British Transport Police said same-sex searches in custody would be conducted “in accordance with the biological birth sex of the detainee” under updated guidance for public bodies.

Under the force’s previous policy, officers had been told that anyone in custody with a gender recognition certificate would be searched by an officer matching a detainee’s acquired gender.

Judges in the UK’s most senior court ruled unanimously on Wednesday that the legal definition of a woman in the Equality Act 2010 did not include transgender women who hold gender recognition certificates.

A spokesperson for BTP said: “Under previous policy, we had advised that someone with a gender recognition certificate may be searched in accordance with their acquired sex.

“However, as an interim position while we digest yesterday’s judgment, we have advised our officers that any same-sex searches in custody are to be undertaken in accordance with the biological birth sex of the detainee.

“We are in the process of reviewing the implications of the ruling and will consider any necessary updates to our policies and practices in line with the law and national guidance.”

The update comes during a legal battle between gender-critical campaigners and the force over its guidance that allowed transgender officers to strip-search women.

The policy allowed trans women on staff to intimately search women so long as they had a gender recognition certificate.

Maya Forstater, the chief executive of the human rights charity Sex Matters, said: “This change of position by British Transport Police is a welcome sign that yesterday’s supreme court judgment will have a huge impact.

“Even before the judgment, Sex Matters argued that BTP’s policy was unlawful. It said that male officers with gender recognition certificates – that is, men with paperwork saying they were women – could carry out searches, including strip-searches, on female detainees. And it said that female officers were expected to search male detainees if they identified as women.

“This policy was based on the demands of the trans lobby, and completely ignored women’s fundamental human rights. Female officers we interviewed told us about being pressured to carry out searches on men who claimed to be women, and how humiliating and degrading they found that.”

A BTP spokesperson confirmed the judicial review was under way, and so could not comment further. A spokesperson for Sex Matters has been approached for comment.

After criticism in January, the National Police Chiefs’ Council suspended similar guidance permitting trans women to intimately search women.

Updated guidance for public bodies after the supreme court’s ruling is expected to be issued by the summer, the head of the equalities regulator said on Thursday.

Kishwer Falkner, the chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, described the ruling as “enormously consequential”. She told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “We are going to have a new statutory code of practice, statutory meaning it will be the law of the land, it will be interpreted by courts as the law of the land. We’re hoping we’re going to have that by the summer.”

She said it would give “clarity” that trans women could not participate in women’s sports or use women-only toilets or changing rooms, and said the NHS must update its guidance on single-sex wards based on biological sex.

Asked if the supreme court ruling was “a victory for common sense”, she said: “Only if you recognise that trans people exist, they have rights and their rights must be respected. Then it becomes a victory for common sense.

“It’s not a victory for an increase in unpleasant actions against trans people. We will not tolerate that. We stand here to defend trans people as much as we do anyone else. So I want to make that very clear.”

Trans rights campaigners have accused the head of the UK’s equalities regulator of “overreach” after she said trans women could be banned from women’s toilets, sports and hospital wards.

Kishwer Falkner, the chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), said the ruling on Wednesday by the UK supreme court that under the Equality Act “woman” only referred to biological women was “enormously consequential”.

Lady Falkner told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Thursday morning the commission was working on a fresh code of practice on women’s spaces, which would have legal force, to confirm what the new rules would be.

“We are going to have a new statutory code of practice, ‘statutory’ meaning it will be the law of the land, it will be interpreted by courts as the law of the land. We’re hoping we’re going to have that by the summer,” she said.

She said the court’s judgment meant only biological women could use single-sex changing rooms and women’s toilets, or participate in women-only sporting events and teams, or be placed in women’s wards in hospitals.

Jane Fae, the director of the campaign group TransActual, said Falkner was “overreaching” in her remarks because in the case of toilet provision, as one example, the tradition in the UK was more complicated than every facility being single sex.

“Loos don’t have genetics, they don’t have biology”, she said. Under the law, an organisation’s approach to providing shared or single-sex services still had to be “fair and proportional”, she said.

Fae said the supreme court ruling had caused significant damage to trans inclusion.

It also, she said, “stripped away [our] protections to the bare minimum” by reducing the legal protections only to cases involving harassment, discrimination or equal pay.

She said trans advocates and campaigners would need to find specific legal cases to test whether the EHRC’s interpretation of the court’s judgment was correct, to reassert their rights. Some could go to the supreme court or to the European court of human rights.

Fae and Vic Valentine, from Scottish Trans, another campaign group, said they feared many trans men and women would “go underground” by stopping using public services or by making themselves less visible to avoid conflicts.

Valentine said they were “pretty worried” about Falkner’s interpretation of the court ruling. “The ramifications of that, in terms of trans people’s ability to use services, spaces, participate in public life, are enormous.

“You just need to think about the enormous range of facilities where the only options available to you are single sex.” For visible trans people, this ruling could “amplify” hostility towards them – a situation Falkner said the commission “will not tolerate”.

Valentine said: “I certainly think it will be possible to run trans-inclusive services. Perhaps how you describe your service or talk about the people you provide your service to will have to look a bit different in the future.”

Susan Smith, a co-founder of For Women Scotland, the group that won the supreme court case on Wednesday, said Falkner’s approach was correct.

Smith said the overreach had come from trans groups and public services that wrongly interpreted the law, including in the previous statutory guidance issued by the commission.

“This only became an issue because they began to push very, very hard on women’s spaces. It really wasn’t quibbling about toilets [it was] for women in need of single-sex spaces for often devastating reasons, where they were vulnerable or required intimate care,” she said.

Those included rape crisis centres or gynaecological examinations. At the same time, she said, some trans activists became more aggressive and provocative in women’s spaces. “If people could have been a little bit more sensible, this wouldn’t have happened.”

This week’s supreme court judgment will have significant implications across policy areas from sport, to prisons and the NHS. It will also impact how smaller organisations manage single-sex spaces and services.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission has said it will publish a new statutory code of practice by the summer, so that it can offer advice to public bodies and organisations about how they may need to revise their policies.

The supreme court was asked to decide on the proper interpretation of the 2010 Equality Act, which applies across Britain. The unanimous judgment that a woman is defined by biological sex under equalities law should add clarity to a number of disputes over single-sex spaces.

Sport

Lady Kishwer Falkner, the chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, said the impact of the ruling on sport was “enormously consequential” and confirmed that it was the “correct interpretation” to conclude that those born as men could not take part in women’s sport. She said sports organisations should now read the judgment. “It does bring clarity and helps them decide what they should do,” she said.

The president of World Athletics, Sebastian Coe, welcomed the ruling, adding that it removed legal uncertainty. “It protects women in places that really matter in sport, whether it’s safe spaces, changing rooms or conduct in and around the field of play,” he said.

In the ruling, Judge Lord Patrick Hodge made it clear that some of the Equality Act’s provisions would only function properly if sex is interpreted as biological sex, and he named “women’s fair participation” in sport as one relevant area. The use of people’s “certificated sex”, acquired by a gender recognition certificate (GRC) rather than their biological sex in sport had led to an “absence of coherence” and “practical problems”, he said.

The supreme court ruling looks at how women would be disadvantaged because of their sex in a sport that is “gender affected” such as boxing, if they found themselves competing against biological males. “Women’s average physical strength, stamina and/or physique will disadvantage them as competitors against average men in a boxing match,” the judgment notes.

Many of the UK’s sport governing bodies have already adopted clear policies banning athletes who were born male from participating in female events. But some sports, including football, allow trans women to compete against and alongside biological women, if they meet reduced testosterone level requirements.

Refuges and rape crisis centres

Elizabeth McGlone, an employment discrimination solicitor and managing partner at didlaw, said refuges would have to review their policies if they wanted to state that they were offering single-sex services and spaces to clients.

“There has been a dilution of single-sex services by virtue of organisations having trans inclusion policies. This ruling will give organisations the confidence to say that we are offering this service only to biological women,” McGlone said. “The judgment gives reassurance to organisations that wanted to describe themselves as single-sex, that they can validly exclude people under the Equality Act.”

The ruling said that if “sex” did not only mean biological sex in the 2010 Equality Act, providers of single-sex spaces would face “practical difficulties”, adding: “If as a matter of law, a service provider is required to provide services previously limited to women also to trans women with a gender recognition certificate (GRC), even if they present as biological men, it is difficult to see how they can then justify refusing to provide those services also to biological men and who also look like biological men.”

The charity Refuge said it would not be changing its policies. “We remain firmly committed to supporting all survivors of domestic abuse, including trans women,” Gemma Sherrington, Refuge’s chief executive, said in a statement.

NHS

A review of NHS services will be required because previous guidance advised that trans patients should be accommodated according to their gender identity. NHS managers will now need to ensure they are recording patients’ biological sex. Lady Falkner expressed impatience at the NHS’s sluggish response. “We’ve been talking to the health service for an inordinately long time, and they keep telling us they’re going to produce new guidance. We will now be asking them when they expect to produce that new guidance,” she said. “They now have clarity. They can start to implement the new legal reasoning.”

The health minister, Karin Smyth, said trans patients should feel reassured that their rights “remain enshrined in the Equality Act” and that they would “have their dignity and privacy respected” in healthcare settings, but she added: “This law was about women’s rights and rights under the Equality Act for sex and for service providers making sure they are compliant with that.”

An NHS spokesperson said: “The NHS is currently reviewing guidance on same sex accommodation and as part of this process, will consider and take into account all relevant legislation and today’s ruling.”

Changing rooms

Lady Falkner said the ruling made it clear that single-sex services such as changing rooms must be based on biological sex, but she added that there was no legal requirement for organisations to provide single-sex services.

“If a male person is allowed to use a women-only service or facility, it isn’t any longer single-sex, then it becomes a mixed-sex space. But there’s no law that forces organisations and service providers to provide a single-sex space, and there is no law against them providing a third, additional space, such as unisex toilets, for example, or changing rooms.”

Sandie Peggie, a nurse working for NHS Fife is taking legal action against her employers, saying she was subject to unlawful harassment under the Equality Act when she was expected to share a changing room with a trans woman. A Newcastle employment tribunal is examining a claim filed by five nurses at Darlington memorial hospital who have complained about the use of a single-sex changing room by a trans colleague. It is not clear whether the supreme court ruling will have an impact on either case.

Michael Foran, a legal academic at Glasgow university, said that although the supreme court ruling had no direct legal bearing on the case, it might encourage NHS Fife to consider settling the claim.

Toilets

Falkner said: “I think the law is quite clear that if a service provider says ‘we’re offering a women’s toilet’, trans [women] should not be using that single-sex facility.”

Peter Byrne, the head of employment law at Slater and Gordon, said trans employees may now find that they were asked to use disabled toilets in organisations where there were no gender neutral facilities. He said that while previously an employee might have been asked which toilet they felt comfortable using, “that option is probably going to disappear”.

Emma Bartlett, a partner and diversity, equality and inclusion lead at law firm CM Murray, said many organisations had been guided by the LGBTQ+ charity Stonewall on being trans inclusive and may now have to revisit their policies. In business settings there is no legislative framework dictating how toilets should be organised, she added. “It’s about common sense and politeness. There’s nothing that now requires an employer to say: only women can use that toilet, and only men can use this toilet, and trans people cannot use either of those toilets,” she said. But she acknowledged that trans women may worry that they could be challenged.

“You can see that a trans woman using a woman’s toilet could now be told that she couldn’t use that on the basis that she’s not a woman. You might find people who are against trans women using a female-designated toilet in public places being emboldened by the decision of the supreme court to speak out, and that will create a very difficult situation for a trans woman.”

Lesbian-only organisations

Lord Hodge said the judgment recognised the concerns of lesbian women who he said “have historically suffered marginalisation because of their sexual orientation”, and who had highlighted the anomalies that would adversely affect them if the word sex was “interpreted as certificated sex rather than biological sex”.

Kate Barker, the chief executive of the LGB Alliance, a charity for same-sex attracted people, which intervened in the case, said the ruling marked a “watershed for women and, in particular, lesbians who have seen their rights and identities steadily stolen from them over the last decade,” she said. “The ruling confirms that the words ‘gay’ and ‘lesbian’ refer to same-sex sexual orientation and makes it absolutely clear that lesbians wishing to form associations of any size are lawfully entitled to exclude men – whether or not they possess a GRC,” said Barker.

Prisons

Prison services will have to revise their policies on where trans prisoners are held as a result of the ruling.

In recent decades, prison policy has evolved in recognition that some trans prisoners who present as women can be vulnerable when they are held in male prisons. Some feminist campaigners have argued that the parallel vulnerability of women in prisons has not been prioritised. In some cases, prisons have allowed inmates to self-identify their gender without requiring a GRC, opening up the potential for exploitation of the system.

Decisions to house violent sex offenders in the female estate have periodically led to national debate. In 2018, the convicted paedophile and rapist Karen White, a 52-year-old trans woman, sexually assaulted two inmates at the female prison where she was being held. In 2023 Isla Bryson, a transgender double rapist, was initially sent to a female prison in Scotland, before being moved to a male facility less than 72 hours later. Last week, it was reported that a trans prisoner, Paris Green, who is serving a life sentence for murder, was still being housed in the women’s wing at Polmont prison in Falkirk, after admitting assaulting a female officer.

A Scottish Prison Service spokesperson said: “We have received the supreme court’s judgment and are considering any potential impact it may have.” Prison policy is different in England and Wales. Sources said that Ministry of Justice officials were still digesting the judgment. A solution may be to house particularly vulnerable trans identifying prisoners separately from the general prison population.

Data collection

Confusion regarding the legal position on gathering data has posed a barrier to collecting data on sex for some organisations. There has been concern that data that includes certificated sex, rather than biological sex has distorted analysis of some social and medical issues.

A government-commissioned review on this issue published last month said: “Sex is a key demographic variable and collecting high quality, robust data on sex is critical to effective policymaking across a wide range of fields, from health and justice to education and the economy. It enables policymakers to measure and address disparities between women and men, and girls and boys. The government has a strong interest in promoting high-quality data on sex, both in its role as a funder of research and as a producer and user of statistics.”

The report’s authors have welcomed the ruling, noting that organisations will be more likely to collect data on biological sex, without fearing that this is unlawful.

Britain’s rural communities could be “destroyed”, the former government food tsar has said, if ministers sign a US trade deal that undercuts British farming standards.

Ministers are working on a new trade deal with the US, after previous post-Brexit attempts stalled. Unpopular agreements signed at the time with Australia and New Zealand featured tariff-free access to beef and lamb and were accused of undercutting UK farmers, who are governed by higher welfare standards than their counterparts. Australia, in a trade deal signed by Liz Truss in late 2021 that came into effect in 2023, was given bespoke sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) standards aimed to not be more “trade-restrictive than necessary to protect human life and health”.

But the tariffs recently imposed by the US president, Donald Trump, combined with a push from the UK’s Labour government for economic growth, have caused ministers to redouble efforts to expedite a deal, which is expected, say some sources, within weeks. The UK is currently subject to the blanket 10% tariff Trump imposed on the world, and of 25% on aluminium, steel and cars.

There are fears from some sectors that the US deal being drawn up will give the US access to the UK agriculture market and lead to a similar situation. The US side is reported to be pressuring the UK to weaken SPS standards and give tariff-free access to some meat products.

The business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, has ruled out imports of food such as hormone-fed beef and chlorine-washed chicken, and said there are US products that currently meet trade standards.

But Henry Dimbleby, who wrote the previous government’s food strategy, has joined farmers in warning against an unfavourable deal for UK food producers.

Dimbleby said: “There is no point in creating a way of farming in this country that produces nutritious food, restores the environment and has high levels of animal welfare, and then import food that is produced in ways that would be illegal for our farmer – you just export those harms abroad, and in the meantime destroy our rural communities. The government has been clear that it will not do this, and it must stick to that promise.”

The Labour MP Clive Lewis urged ministers to align with the EU rather than sacrifice standards in agriculture for a US trade deal.

He told the Guardian: “Since Brexit, the UK has begun drifting from the EU’s higher food and environmental standards. Now we face pressure from a US administration that champions deregulated, corporate-led agriculture, demanding access for products that are more processed and of lower standard. So when ministers talk about trade generating ‘growth’, we have to ask: growth for whom? Certainly not for British farmers, food security or the environment.

“The UK must pivot back toward Europe – towards high standards, democratic accountability and trade policies that serve people, not just profits.”

Farmers, already furious at the government for changes to inheritance tax on agricultural land, are expected to bring fresh protests if such a deal goes ahead.

The National Farmers’ Union president, Tom Bradshaw, said: “There are serious concerns that the US administration is pressuring the UK government to weaken its SPS standards as a concession for lower tariffs or as part of a new trade deal. This could lead to imports of products that would be illegal for our farmers to produce domestically.

“British farmers and growers uphold some of the highest standards in the world. The public has shown time and time again that they want the beef, pork and chicken they buy produced responsibly and not using methods that were rightly banned in the UK decades ago.”

Martin Lines, the chief executive of the Nature Friendly Farming Network, added: “The government was elected on a promise not to undermine UK food standards through imported products, and it is absolutely critical that they stick to that. We cannot ask British farmers to maintain high environmental and animal welfare standards while opening the door to imports produced under significantly weaker regulations.”

A spokesperson for the Department for Business and Trade said: “The US is an indispensable ally and negotiations on an economic prosperity deal that strengthens our existing trading relationship continue. We will only ever sign trade agreements which align with the UK’s national interests and we will never lower our high food standards.”

An inquest into the deaths of four people killed by drivers with failing eyesight in northern England has found enforcement of visual legal standards for motorists is “ineffective and unsafe”.

The HM senior coroner for Lancashire, Dr James Adeley, has sent a report to the transport secretary, Heidi Alexander, calling for action to be taken to prevent future deaths.

Adeley labelled the licensing system for drivers as the “laxest in Europe” as he said the UK was one of only three countries to rely on self-reporting of visual conditions affecting the ability to drive.

He said it was concerning that the UK was the only European country to issue licences without any visual checks for a continuous period up to the age of 70.

The coroner made the remarks on Thursday at the inquests in Preston of Marie Cunningham, 79, Grace Foulds, 85, Peter Westwell, 80, and Anne Ferguson, 75.

Cunningham and Foulds, who were friends, were hit by Glyn Jones, 68, in his Audi A3 as they crossed the road in Southport, Merseyside, on 30 November 2021.

Jones was aware for some years before the collision that his sight was insufficient to meet the minimum requirement to drive a car but failed to declare it to the Driving and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA).

When he was jailed for seven years and four months, his sentencing hearing was told he could not see his steering wheel clearly.

Westwell was hit by Neil Pemberton, 81, as he crossed the road in Langho, near Blackburn, on 17 March 2022. Pemberton, who was jailed for 32 months, had a long history of eye disease and was informed on several occasions by different clinicians that he should not drive, the inquest heard.

He also repeatedly failed to declare his sight deficit on licence applications to the DVLA.

Ferguson died when she was struck by a van driven by Vernon Law, 72, in Whitworth, Rochdale, on 11 July 2023. A month before the incident, Law was told he had cataracts in both eyes but he lied to an optometrist that he did not drive.

Law, who was jailed for four years, knew he had problems with his eyes for years before the collision and also failed to declare his sight issues on licence applications to the DVLA, the inquest at County Hall heard.

Adeley said: “The four fatalities shared the same feature that the driver’s sight was well below the standard required to drive a car.

“The current system for ‘ensuring’ drivers meet the visual legal standards is ineffective, unsafe and unfit to meet the needs of society as evidenced by the deaths of Marie Cunningham, Grace Foulds, Anne Ferguson and Peter Westwell where the DVLA continued to provide licences to drivers who had failed to meet the legal sight requirements.”

The Department for Transport said it would consider the coroner’s report once received.

A spokesperson added: “The NHS recommends adults should have their eyes tested every two years and drivers are legally required to inform the DVLA if they have a condition which affects their eyesight.

“We are committed to improving road safety and continue to explore ways to achieve this.”

Giorgia Meloni said Donald Trump had accepted her invitation for an official trip to Rome, as the pair met in Washington in an attempt by the Italian prime minister to bridge the gap between the EU and US amid trade tariff tensions.

Meloni said Trump’s trip could happen “in the near future” and could present an opportunity for him to meet other European leaders.

“The goal for me is to make the west great again,” Meloni said.

Trump opened the summit in the Oval Office on Thursday by saying Meloni was “doing a fantastic job” and had “taken Europe by storm”, adding that she “has become a friend”.

Trump and Meloni had earlier both expressed optimism about resolving the EU-US trade conflict. The EU faces 25% import tariffs on steel and aluminium and cars, and broader tariffs on almost all other goods, under Trump’s policy to hit countries he says impose high barriers to US imports.

“I am sure we can make a deal and I am here to help with that,” Meloni said before the summit.

Trump said that broadly speaking he expected he would make an announcement about trade deals but he was in no rush. “We’re going to have very little problem making a deal with Europe or anybody else, because we have something that everybody wants,” Trump said.

Before leaving for Washington, Meloni discussed the summit with the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen.

Germany’s outgoing chancellor, Olaf Scholz, and his successor, Friedrich Merz, also discussed the meeting with Meloni, according to reports in the German edition of Politico. Scholz failed to get a meeting with Trump and Merz’s request is reportedly pending.

Meloni had previously described Trump’s tariffs on EU goods as “wrong” but she appears to be taking a more cautious approach as she manages a delicate balancing act between her political ideals, which are more in tune with Trump’s, and Italy’s role within the EU.

The meeting provoked trepidation among some of Italy’s European allies as well as Meloni’s domestic opposition amid fears their closeness risks jeopardising the bloc’s unified approach to the tariffs and other issues.

Enrico Borghi, a politician with the centrist Italia Viva party, told a TV talkshow: “The advice from the opposition is that the prime minister returns home with reopened negotiations between the US and EU that will guarantee a framework of relative tranquility to our economic and productive system, which has been weakened by what is a real trade war.”

Italy is the third-largest exporter to the US from the EU. Meloni’s office denied she would seek special tariff exemptions on Italian products. Italy has strong economic ties with the US that go beyond exports, including foreign direct investments.

The summit was expected to address Trump’s demand that Nato partners increase military spending to 2% of GDP. Italy is at 1.49%, among the lowest in Europe.

It was Meloni’s third visit to the White House, with the two previous occasions taking place during Joe Biden’s administration.

She will return to Rome in time to meet on Friday Trump’s vice-president, JD Vance, whose blistering attack on Europe at the Munich Security Conference in February she has defended.

Vance will also meet Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s secretary of state, during his Easter weekend visit.

Giorgia Meloni said Donald Trump had accepted her invitation for an official trip to Rome, as the pair met in Washington in an attempt by the Italian prime minister to bridge the gap between the EU and US amid trade tariff tensions.

Meloni said Trump’s trip could happen “in the near future” and could present an opportunity for him to meet other European leaders.

“The goal for me is to make the west great again,” Meloni said.

Trump opened the summit in the Oval Office on Thursday by saying Meloni was “doing a fantastic job” and had “taken Europe by storm”, adding that she “has become a friend”.

Trump and Meloni had earlier both expressed optimism about resolving the EU-US trade conflict. The EU faces 25% import tariffs on steel and aluminium and cars, and broader tariffs on almost all other goods, under Trump’s policy to hit countries he says impose high barriers to US imports.

“I am sure we can make a deal and I am here to help with that,” Meloni said before the summit.

Trump said that broadly speaking he expected he would make an announcement about trade deals but he was in no rush. “We’re going to have very little problem making a deal with Europe or anybody else, because we have something that everybody wants,” Trump said.

Before leaving for Washington, Meloni discussed the summit with the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen.

Germany’s outgoing chancellor, Olaf Scholz, and his successor, Friedrich Merz, also discussed the meeting with Meloni, according to reports in the German edition of Politico. Scholz failed to get a meeting with Trump and Merz’s request is reportedly pending.

Meloni had previously described Trump’s tariffs on EU goods as “wrong” but she appears to be taking a more cautious approach as she manages a delicate balancing act between her political ideals, which are more in tune with Trump’s, and Italy’s role within the EU.

The meeting provoked trepidation among some of Italy’s European allies as well as Meloni’s domestic opposition amid fears their closeness risks jeopardising the bloc’s unified approach to the tariffs and other issues.

Enrico Borghi, a politician with the centrist Italia Viva party, told a TV talkshow: “The advice from the opposition is that the prime minister returns home with reopened negotiations between the US and EU that will guarantee a framework of relative tranquility to our economic and productive system, which has been weakened by what is a real trade war.”

Italy is the third-largest exporter to the US from the EU. Meloni’s office denied she would seek special tariff exemptions on Italian products. Italy has strong economic ties with the US that go beyond exports, including foreign direct investments.

The summit was expected to address Trump’s demand that Nato partners increase military spending to 2% of GDP. Italy is at 1.49%, among the lowest in Europe.

It was Meloni’s third visit to the White House, with the two previous occasions taking place during Joe Biden’s administration.

She will return to Rome in time to meet on Friday Trump’s vice-president, JD Vance, whose blistering attack on Europe at the Munich Security Conference in February she has defended.

Vance will also meet Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s secretary of state, during his Easter weekend visit.

A series of exceptionally dry summers that caused famine and social breakdown were behind one of the most severe threats to Roman rule of Britain, according to new academic research.

The rebellion, known as the “barbarian conspiracy”, was a pivotal moment in Roman Britain. Picts, Scotti and Saxons took advantage of Britain’s descent into anarchy to inflict crushing blows on weakened Roman defences in the spring and summer of AD367.

Senior Roman commanders were captured or killed, and some soldiers reportedly deserted and joined the invaders. It took two years for generals dispatched by Valentinian I, emperor of the western half of the Roman empire, to restore order. The last remnants of official Roman administration left Britain about 40 years later.

Warning of the possible consequences of drought today, Tatiana Bebchuk, a researcher at Cambridge’s department of geography, said: “The relationship between climate and conflict is becoming increasingly clear in our own time, so these findings aren’t just important for historians. Extreme climate conditions lead to hunger, which can lead to societal challenges, which eventually lead to outright conflict.”

The study, published in Climatic Change, used oak tree-ring records to reconstruct temperature and precipitation levels in southern Britain during and after the barbarian conspiracy. Combined with surviving Roman accounts, the data led the authors to conclude that severe summer droughts were a driving force.

Little archaeological evidence for the rebellion existed, and written accounts from the period were limited, said Charles Norman of Cambridge’s department of geography. “But our findings provide an explanation for the catalyst of this major event.”

Southern Britain experienced an exceptional sequence of remarkably dry summers from AD364 to 366, the researchers found. In the period AD350-500, average monthly reconstructed rainfall in the main growing season was 51mm. But in AD364, it fell to 29mm. AD365 was even worse with 28mm, and the rainfall the following year was still below average at 37mm.

Prof Ulf Büntgen of Cambridge’s department of geography said: “Three consecutive droughts would have had a devastating impact on the productivity of Roman Britain’s most important agricultural region. As Roman writers tell us, this resulted in food shortages with all of the destabilising societal effects this brings.”

The researchers identified no other major droughts in southern Britain in the period AD350-500 and found that other parts of north-west Europe escaped these conditions.

By AD367, the population of Britain was in the “utmost conditions of famine”, according to Ammianus Marcellinus, a soldier and historian.

Norman said the poor harvests would have “reduced the grain supply to Hadrian’s Wall, providing a plausible motive for the rebellion there, which allowed the Picts into northern Britain”.

The study suggested that grain deficits may have contributed to other desertions in this period, and therefore a general weakening of the Roman army in Britain.

Military and societal breakdown provided an ideal opportunity for peripheral tribes, including the Picts, Scotti and Saxons, to invade the province.

Andreas Rzepecki, from the Rhineland-Palatinate General Directorate for Cultural Heritage in Trier, said: “The prolonged and extreme drought seems to have occurred during a particularly poor period for Roman Britain, in which food and military resources were being stripped for the Rhine frontier.

“These factors limited resilience, and meant a drought-induced, partial-military rebellion and subsequent external invasion were able to overwhelm the weakened defences.”

The researchers expanded their climate-conflict analysis to the entire Roman empire for the period AD350-476. They reconstructed the climate conditions immediately before and after 106 battles and found that a statistically significant number of battles were fought following dry years.

A mass shooting on Thursday on the Florida State University campus sent several people to a nearby hospital, a medical center spokesperson said, with at least one person reported dead.

Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare said in a statement it had received six patients – one in critical condition and the rest in serious condition.

NBC also reported there was at least one fatality.

A spokesperson for the Tallahassee police department said that it had one suspect in custody.

Ambulances, fire trucks and patrol vehicles from multiple law enforcement agencies raced toward the campus that sits just west of Florida’s state capital after the university issued a shooter alert at midday on Thursday, saying police were responding near the student union.

“Our prayers are with our FSU family and state law enforcement is actively responding,” the state governor, Ron DeSantis, wrote on X.

The gunfire was reported at the student union building on the FSU campus and students and faculty were advised to shelter in place as police responded. More than 42,000 students attend classes at the main campus.

Videos posted on social media show students being evacuated from the scene.

Officers took one suspect into custody shortly after the shooting, two law enforcement sources with knowledge of the situation told CNN.

By mid-afternoon the Florida State University campus had been secured, according to the Tallahassee police department. Multiple law enforcement agencies remain on-site for the ongoing investigation. The student union and the surrounding area are still considered an active crime scene.

The department is instructing that individuals should not return to the area for any reason. Busing is under way to help students reach the reunification point.

Earlier, hundreds of students streamed away from the direction of the student union. Students were glued to their phones, some visibly emotional, while others hugged each other. Dozens gathered near the music school waiting for news.

Ryan Cedergren, a 21-year-old communications student, said he and about 30 others hid in the bowling alley in the lower level of the student union after seeing students running from a nearby bar.

“In that moment, it was survival,” he said.

Donald Trump opened his Oval Office meeting at the White House with the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, with comments on the shooting, saying he had been fully briefed.

“It’s a horrible thing. It’s horrible that things like this take place,” the US president said.

Fred Guttenberg, the father of 14-year-old daughter Jaime Guttenberg, who was murdered in the 2018 Parkland high school shooting, said in a post on Twitter/X: “America is broken.”

“As a father, all I ever wanted after the Parkland shooting was to help our children be safe,” he said. “Sadly, because of the many people who refuse to do the right things about reducing gun violence, I am not surprised by what happened today.”

Guttenberg also said that many of his daughter’s friends who survived the Parkland shooting are current students at FSU.

University police escorted the students out of the union after about 15 minutes of hiding and he saw a person getting emergency treatment on the lawn, he said.

A junior student, Joshua Sirmans, 20, was in the university’s main library when he said alarms began going off warning of a shooter. Law enforcement officers escorted him and other students out of the library with their hands over their heads, he said.

The US attorney general, Pam Bondi, said in a social media post that the justice department was in touch with FBI agents on the scene. Students and faculty were instructed to seek shelter and await further instructions.

“Lock and stay away from all doors and windows and be prepared to take additional protective measures,” the alert said.

The Leon county school district, where Tallahassee is located, posted on X: “All LCS schools are back to normal operating procedures. Lockout has been lifted district wide.”

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed reporting

A university student died after being caught in an “underwater vortex” while diving off the south coast of England, an inquest has heard.

Emily Sherwin, 20, who studied marine conservation, was diving off Old Harry Rocks near Swanage, Dorset, when she got caught in the current and became separated from her dive buddy.

She did not surface and a large air and sea search was launched but her body was not found, the inquest in Bournemouth heard on Thursday.

Sherwin lived with her parents, Charles, a dentist, and Ellen, a consultant oncologist, close to Poole harbour in Dorset.

She had just finished her first year at the University of Plymouth and was planning a placement in the Pacific for her third year.

She was invited out with her friend, Beth Pryor, on the dive on 23 July last year, the day after Sherwin’s 20th birthday.

The pair were part of a crew that went from Poole Quay to Old Harry Rocks and at about 5.50pm entered the water and descended.

Pryor said in a statement that at a depth of about 7 metres (23ft) they were caught in an underwater vortex and spun around. She said: “We both went down below the surface and we were horizontal facing each other and we were holding each other’s arms.

“I signalled to Emily that something was wrong and pointed to my ears and gave her the signal to go back up. I did this two or three times.

“At this point we got caught in a vortex and started to spin around. I wasn’t able to check my dive computer due to the spinning. I just felt disorientated.

“We held each other’s arms and I signalled to go up but I did not see her do it back. Visibility was poor and I could only see about one metre. I could see Emily was vertical and not rising. At this point things get a bit hazy as it all happened so fast.

“She was vertical and her regulator was out of her mouth. She was sinking at the time and I attempted to reach down but that was not possible. At this point I could feel some water seeping into my mask.

“We hit the bottom of the seabed hard and I was unable to see Emily. I ascended to the surface quickly and spoke to the skipper, who signalled the mayday and then other boats and the rescue helicopter came to the area.”

Sherwin’s mother, Ellen, said: “She had loved her first year at university and was looking forward to returning to move in with her friends in September. She had been celebrating her birthday the night before.

“She was fit and healthy and passionate about the natural world and especially sea life. Her hero was David Attenborough.

“She started diving in 2023 and immediately loved it as she felt a sense of calm in the water. She described it as her safe space.”

The coroner Richard Middleton gave a narrative conclusion and said Sherwin’s cause of death remained unknown.

The Doctor Who screenwriter Russell T Davies has said he has no time for “online warriors” who claim the show is too woke.

Speaking to BBC Radio 2, the Welsh writer – who was also behind the hit series Queer As Folk and It’s a Sin – said: “What you might call diversity, I just call an open door.”

The sci-fi series returned to the BBC last week with Ncuti Gatwa again playing the Doctor and Varada Sethu joining him as his companion. It marks the first time the two leads have both been played by minority ethnic actors.

Jodie Whittaker became the first female Doctor in 2017 under the previous head writer, Chris Chibnall, and Gatwa became the first black actor to play the TV lead of Time Lord in 2023.

“Someone always brings up matters of diversity,” Davies said on the Radio 2 programme Doctor Who: 20 Secrets from 20 Years. “And there are online warriors accusing us of diversity and wokeness and involving messages and issues.

“And I have no time for this. I don’t have a second to bear [it]. Because what you might call diversity, I just call an open door.”

When asked whether he wrote the show’s diverse themes consciously, he said: “I don’t even know if it’s conscious. That’s life, and I think it’s the only way to write.”

He said it would be harder to write scripts with “a narrow window” of references. “Why limit yourself? Why breathe in the exhaust fumes? Why be toxic?” he said. “Come over here where the life and light and air and sound is.”

Sethu, who plays the Doctor’s new companion Belinda Chandra, addressed comments about the show’s perceived “wokeness” in an interview with the Radio Times.

“I just think we’re doing the right thing if we’re getting comments like that,” she said. “Woke just means inclusive, progressive, and that you care about people. And as far as I know, the core of Doctor Who is kindness, love and doing the right thing.”

Gatwa told the Radio Times that the two actors taking the lead roles indicated “progress, in terms of how we reflect the societies that we live in”.

Rumours have surrounded the show for several weeks, with unconfirmed reports suggesting that Gatwa may leave and the BBC may axe Doctor Who. The BBC has said only that any decision on a new series would be made after the current one ends.