• maz report, in a 1,700-page report that apportions blame for the 2017 tragedy widely, Sir Martin Moore-Bick, the chair of the inquiry, found that three firms – Arconic, Kingspan and Celotex – “engaged in deliberate and sustained strategies to … mislead the market”. He also found the architects Studio E, the builders Rydon and Harley Facades and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea’s building control department all bore responsibility for the blaze.

Priti Patel has released a statement on X following her elimination from the Tory leadership contest. In it she renews her call for party members to have “ a greater role in the running our party”. She has not endorsed any of her rivals.

Not all Conservatives agree the members should have more power. William Hague was the leader who changed the party rules to ensure the leader is elected by members, not MPs, but now he believes that was not such a good idea. Writing in the Times this week, he said:

Some [leadership candidates] are promising more power for party members, but let me advise them — from the person who set off down that road long ago — this will not be the change for which the wider electorate is looking. Voters have a justified sense that the Tories were unable to govern well because of their internal politics, which inhibited decision-making on matters from Brexit policy to prisons. More internal politics will not be the answer.

Back to the Tory leadership contest, and Mel Stride has posted this on social media.

Delighted to be going through to the next round of the leadership contest and very grateful to those colleagues who supported me.

There is all to play for and it’s clear where the ‘Melmentum’ is! I will restore trust and competence and lead us back into government.

The Scottish government appears to have dropped its pledge to provide universal free school meals to primary pupils, despite the first minister claiming he aims to “lift every child out of poverty”, PA Media reports. PA says:

In his first programme for government since taking on the job, John Swinney announced plans for “significant reform” to public services in order to provide “whole-family support” in the fight against child poverty – which he has said is his overriding goal in government.

But Swinney did not mention in his 30-minute speech in Holyrood a rolling back on his government’s commitment to free school meals.

According to the 47-page document published alongside the speech, the government will “Work towards further expanding free school meals to those in receipt of the Scottish child payment in primary 6 and primary 7”.

The document also said nearly £22m would be made available for “free school meal alternatives in all school holidays for eligible families”.

While the SNP’s 2021 manifesto said: “We will provide free school breakfasts and lunches to every primary school pupil in Scotland, all year round, and for all children in state-funded special schools in Scotland.”

Back to the Tory leadership contests, and at least two of the candidates still in the race have posted messages on X praising Priti Patel, who is now out of the contest. Presumably they are angling for her support.

This is from James Cleverly.

A great colleague, formidable campaigner & a brilliant Conservative Home Secretary.@pritipatel has run a fantastic campaign and deserves huge credit for her hard work. She will be an integral part of the future of our Party.

And this is from Tom Tugendhat.

Priti, you ran a campaign to be proud of.

You are a brilliant conservative and it is a privilege to call you a friend, I look forward to working with you to rebuild trust and win the next election.

John Swinney has pledged “significant reform” of public services to provide “whole family support” in an effort to eradicate child poverty, PA Media reports. PA says:

Scotland’s first minister delivered his first programme for government this afternoon, just 24 hours after his finance secretary announced about £500m of cuts.

The announcement, which was clearly hamstrung by the fraught financial situation in Scotland, included little in terms of concrete new action.

But Swinney did pledge to revamp how poverty is tackled.

The SNP leader has already made clear that tackling child poverty is “first and foremost” in his priorities.

“Our goal is to lift every child in Scotland who is in poverty out of it, so, we must do more,” he said.

Here, the first minister stressed the need to ensure a “system of whole-family support” is available – adding this must be “easy to access, well-connected and responsive to families’ needs”.

He added: “Over the coming year, we will work with partners to enable greater local flexibility, so that services can be more easily tailored to the needs of the families they support.”

He said the Scottish government would “consider where greater investment is needed”.

But he stated: “The key objective of the approach we will take forward will be to deliver significant reform of the work of public services to deliver whole-family support extensively across the country.”

Along with changes to public services, the first minister also pledged to introduce rent controls in new legislation, invest £1bn in “affordable, high-quality and funded early learning and childcare” and provide funding for Creative Scotland to restart its open fund, which provides grants to creative artists.

Swinney also pledged to overhaul the rules which govern the conduct of ministers.

The ministerial code, which will be published by the end of the year, will allow independent advisers to initiate investigations into the conduct of ministers, as opposed to requiring the first minister to call for a probe.

And here is some more on the implications of the results in the first round of the Tory leadership contest from journalists and commentators.

From Robert Shrimsley, the FT’s chief political commentator

That feels like it for Tom Tugendhat – expect Jenrick, Badenoch and Cleverly to pull away – TT now battling Stride just to stay in contest

From Chris Smyth from the Times

Tory votes much more widely spread than many thought

Mel Stride outperforming expectations and seriously challenging Tom Tugendhat for One Nation vote

Badenoch the big loser as Jenrick comes top, and presumably picks up a fair number of Patel’s backers

Badenoch’s allies now pitching her as everyone’ second choice with the “broadest base of support across the party” But as often with Tory elections, it may come down who who MPs dislike most – Kemi, Cleverly or Tugendhat

From the Guardian’s Pippa Crerar

Patel’s ejection shows how far her standing among MPs has slipped since she was home sec under Boris Johnson.

Jenrick well ahead given small pool of voters. Badenoch may be disappointed, while Cleverly likely relieved to come close third.

From Adam Payne from PoliticsHome

Some takeaways:

– Jenrick v Cleverly looking a decent bet at this stage *but* there’s a lot to play for

– With that in mind, how they perform at conference could be v significant

– A much smaller parliamentary Tory party means how just one or two MP vote can easily be crucial

From Ben Riley-Smith from the Daily Telegraph

What jumps out

– Chatter Patel was struggling to get the numbers proves true

– Jenrick significantly ahead. 28 votes, six ahead of Badenoch –

Mel Stride’s repeated confidence he had the backing proved true

– Tugendhat only just scrapes into fourth spot.

Battle to make final4 now

From Sam Freedman, writer, Substacker and Prospect columnist

The main takeaway from that first ballot is MPs are not particularly enthused about anyone, don’t know who will win, but do know all the candidates have obvious weaknesses.

From Sunder Katwala, head of the British Future thinktank

Nb, 25 votes for the final four and 41 votes guarantees the top two. There is now as much chance as Jenrick-Cleverly or Badenoch-Cleverly as there is of Jenrick-Badenoch in my view

You can’t draw many firm conclusions from these numbers. (See 3.32pm.) There are 14 Priti Patel votes now up for grabs, and you might assume that they would go to a rightwinger. But a) it is not always clear who the rightwingers are (see 3.58pm), and b) MPs vote as much or more on character and personality as on ideology. And what happens after that? We can’t tell for sure who will be in the final four, let alone where the votes of the person who comes last on Tuesday will go.

But here are three conclusions that do stand up, and that weren’t obvious until the results came in (or at least as obvious as they are now).

1) Kemi Badenoch is significantly more popular with party members than with her colleagues. And that could end up being very important, in the final round of voting by MPs, when they have to decide the two candidates to put on the ballot for members. She is seen as divisive and abrasive, and if there are enough MPs voting deliberately to keep her off the ballot, she will be in trouble. The key number is 41, because any MP with at least 41 votes will make it onto the final ballot. (That seems very low, but there are only 121 Tory MPs and so it is mathematically impossible for more than two of them to have at least 41 votes.) Can Badenoch get to 41? Probably, but it does not seem certain.

2) Robert Jenrick has won the summer phase of the contest. A year ago hardly anyone would have bet on him to be the next Tory leader, but he has got the momentum, and today’s ConservativeHome survey (see 11.50am) suggests Badenoch is the only person who would beat him in a head-to-head of members. And if he has a clear lead going into the final ballot for MPs, his campaign could try “lending” votes to someone else to keep Badenoch out. The Boris Johnson camp did this in 2019, when they reassigned some votes to ensure Jeremy Hunt made the final two because Johnson thought Hunt would be easier to beat than Michael Gove.

3) Mel Stride deserves the unlikely survivor award. Commentators have never taken him seriously as a candidate, and it was assumed by many that he would be knocked out of the contest today. But now it does not seem impossible that he could beat Tom Tugendhat to get through to the final four (although it still looks unlikely.)

My colleague Kiran Stacey has posted this on social media about the Tory leadership contest.

Interestingly, supporters of both Robert Jenrick and Kemi Badenoch are painting their candidate as the more centrist one. They clearly feel that’s where the parliamentary votes lie.

The government will consider “all options” to put university funding on a secure footing, Jacqui Smith, the minister for skills, told a conference today.

But, in a speech today at the annual conference of Universities UK, Smith did not set out any specific proposals for the reform of higher education funding. And she also hinted that the government might take quite a long time before it does put firm ideas on the table.

She told the conference:

Higher education providers are rightly independent from government and have a responsibility to plan prudently to ensure their long-term sustainability.

However, I am well aware that providers are under financial strain, and that’s why we took immediate action.

Sir David Behan, who carried out the recent independent review of The Office for Students, has now been appointed as its interim chair, and Sir David will oversee the important work of refocusing the Office for Students’ role to concentrate on a number of key priorities, including prioritising the sector’s financial stability. And I will be working closely with the OfS to understand the sector’s changing financial landscape.

And I am committed to making sure that there are robust plans in place to mitigate risks as far as is possible. And we’re determined in government that the higher education funding system should deliver for our economy, for universities and for students, and we are carefully considering all options to deliver a more robust higher education sector, working on it now, but this isn’t something that’s going to happen overnight. It will take time to get it right, and we’re doing it – as I started by outlining – in an era of enormously difficult and tough fiscal choices that we need to make.

This result looks a tad disappointing for Kemi Badenoch, given her clear lead over other candidates in the membership polling. (See 11.50am.) She has posted this on social media.

Thank you to every one of my colleagues who voted for me. This, coupled with all the independent members polls, show that there is huge support for @renewal2030.

It’s time to deal with hard truths today, rather than big problems tomorrow. I look forward to making the case for renewal around the country, with colleagues and members.

Blackman is reading out the results now

Robert Jenrick: 28

Kemi Badenoch: 22

James Cleverly: 21

Tom Tugendhat: 17

Mel Stride: 16

Priti Patel: 14

That means Patel is out of the contest.

The next round of voting will take place on Tuesday next week, when another candidate will be eliminated.

Bob Blackman, the chair of the Conservative 1922 Committee, is about to announce the results of voting in the first round of the Tory leadership contest.