Portrait of the week: Sue Gray resigns and the Chagos Islands are handed back

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Sue Gray resigned as chief of staff to Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister. She will become Sir Keir’s envoy for the nations and regions of the United Kingdom. She was replaced by Morgan McSweeney, 47. James Lyons, a former political journalist who has more recently worked for the NHS and TikTok, was brought in to take charge of strategic communications. Sir Keir paid back more than £6,000 for gifts and hospitality, including six Taylor Swift tickets, four tickets to the races and a clothing rental agreement with his wife.

More people in the United Kingdom died than were born in the year to mid-2023, according to the Office for National Statistics. Nonetheless, the population grew by 1 per cent to 68.3 million, because net migration was 677,300. In the seven days to 7 October, 1,368 migrants in small boats arrived in England – 973 of them on a single day: the most on any day this year. According to French authorities, a child was found to have died in a migrant vessel off Boulogne-Sur-Mer, and two men and a woman were crushed to death in a vessel off Calais. The High Speed 2 rail project will run to Euston in the centre of London, Louise Haigh, the Transport Secretary, confirmed, rather than ending at Old Oak Common, near Wormwood Scrubs. Ofwat ordered water companies to repay customers £158 million through lower bills next year after they failed to meet targets on pollution and leaks. Abu Dhabi wrote off its 9.9 per cent investment in Thames Water.