A 34-year-old Manchester plumber, Hannah Spencer, has won the Gorton and Denton by-election for the Green Party with 14,980 votes, taking 40.7% of the vote and a 27.5% swing. Reform polled 10,578 votes and Labour, which previously held the seat, dropped to third with 9,364 votes. Spencer, believed to be the first qualified plumber in the House of Commons and newly trained as a plasterer via a St Gobain intensive course, has pledged to champion tradespeople in parliament.

HMRC is intensifying enforcement of the VAT domestic reverse charge (DRC) in construction, moving from “light‑touch” to active enquiries, assessments and penalties where reverse charge accounting, CIS classification or invoicing are wrong. The DRC applies where both parties are UK VAT‑ and CIS‑registered, the work falls within CIS “construction operations”, and the customer has not declared end‑user or intermediary status, with mixed‑supply treatment governed by a 5% threshold. Contractors and subcontractors now need watertight written end‑user declarations, DRC‑capable invoicing systems, and cash‑flow planning that reflects loss of the VAT working‑capital buffer.

Scotland is on course to meet most emissions cuts required in its first carbon budget for 2026–2030, but the Climate Change Committee warns that weak long‑term policy on building heat decarbonisation and negative emissions technologies threatens later targets. The CCC points to slow progress on large‑scale heat pump deployment, limited clarity on phasing out high‑carbon heating systems, and uncertainty over engineered removals such as bioenergy with carbon capture and storage. For infrastructure planners, this signals potential future policy shifts in heat networks, retrofit standards and CCS‑ready industrial projects.