Political correspondent Millie Cooke reports:

Nigel Farage has appointed Richard Tice as Reform UK’s head of business, trade and energy.

The first appointment he has made this morning, as he unveils his party’s new top team.

Mr Tice said his department would have a “total focus on growth and prosperity”.

Political correspondent Millie Cooke reports from Westminster:

Nigel Farage is gearing up to unveil Reform UK’s would-be cabinet at a dimly lit press conference in Westminster.

Four podiums have been set out on the stage, each embossed with different titles including shadow home secretary; shadow chancellor of the Exchequer; shadow secretary of state for business, trade and energy; and shadow secretary of state for education and skills.

Robert Jenrick is expected to be named Reform’s would-be chancellor, Richard Tice is expected to be named its choice for business secretary, while Zia Yusuf is expected to be its option for home secretary, if the party wins the next election.

Its pick for who would become its secretary of state for education and skills, however, is currently unknown – with growing speculation that it could be a new, unexpected figure.

The Reform UK leader will host a press conference in London at 11am. He will name spokespeople, who would form part of the cabinet if his party win the next general election.

Political reporter Athena Stavrou reports:

Zia Yusuf has described Tory-defector Robert Jenrick as a “thoughtful, serious man” amid speculation he will be named Reform UK’s chancellor if they were to win an election.

The party is preparing to unveil their would-be frontbench on Tuesday morning, with Mr Jenrick rumoured to be taking the highly coveted Treasury role.

“He is somebody who is already adding value in terms of helping with his experiences that he had in government,” Reform’s head of policy told Times Radio.

Despite clashing with Mr Jenrick on social media ahead of his chaotic defection to Reform UK last month, Mr Yusuf praised him ahead of today’s announcement.

He said: “People probably have seen the tweets. We had some exchanges on social media. I’ve gotten to know Robert quite well. And I speak to him almost every day. He’s a thoughtful, serious man.

“I think he does believe clearly the things that he has talked about, and he got extremely frustrated inside the Conservative Party.”

The UK should make places like Somerset take their fair share of migrants, a Danish minister who oversaw radical immigration reforms has suggested.

Kaare Dybvad Bek, Denmark’s employment minister who is part of the leading centre-left Social Democratic Party, told an event in Westminster on Monday that he found it “curious” that parts of southern England lacked diversity while the north of England was very diverse.

Mr Dybvad Bek said that the separation was “fundamentally wrong”, saying: “This is different from our [Danish] culture. I think also that there are some things that are fundamentally wrong – to segregate towns and cities. I think it is wrong also to give special rights based on ethnic or religious groups. I think that we need to have a society where everyone has the same rights.”

Councils face a “race against time” to organise reinstated local elections, the body representing ballot organisers has said, as the head of one affected council claimed it raised significant questions over the Government’s wider devolution plans.

The deputy chief executive of the professional body for election administrators said returning officers and other election staff had lost “months” of planning for the elections that will now take place in 30 council areas on May 7.

The Government announced its latest policy U-turn on Monday, after telling dozens of councils they would not have ballots this year ahead of planned local government reorganisation.

Some £63 million will be made available to local authorities who are undergoing changes.

The Conservatives could be hit harder than Labour by the government’s decision to abandon plans to postpone elections in 30 areas, Britain’s leading polling expert has said.

Writing in The Independent, the top pollster explained that while Labour were always likely to face embarrassment in the May polls, the Tories are now fighting significant challenges from Reform UK in key counties that had been told they could delay elections.

Sir John Curtice said despite more Labour-controlled councils having been due to postpone their elections, the Conservatives “have a good reason to regret the reversal” of the delays, with four large Tory-majority county councils – Norfolk, Suffolk, East and West Sussex– now having to organise ballots.

“Although it was mostly relatively small Labour councils where only a third of the seats are up for grabs that opted for postponement, so also did three county councils under Tory control and a fourth where the Conservatives are the largest party,” he wrote.

Political reporter Athena Stavrou reports:

A government minister has said he is “utterly baffled” by the Conservative Party’s response to Labour’s u-turn on delaying 30 local elections.

After the government announced it was abandoning plans to postpone some polls, Tory leader Kemi Badenoch described the reversal as “predictable chaos from a useless Government that cannot make basic decisions”.

On Tuesday, health minister Stephen Kinnock told Times Radio that Ms Badenoch appeared to be “criticising her own local government”.

“I’m utterly baffled by Kemi Badenoch’s views on this because of the 30 local authorities that asked for these elections to be postponed, I think five of them were Conservative controlled councils,” he said.

“So you know she seems to be criticising her own local government setup when she makes those comments.”

It comes as top pollster Sir John Curtice said the Tories could be hit just as hard as Labour by the u-turn, with Ms Badenoch’s party now facing significant challenges from Reform UK in large county councils that had been told they could delay elections.

As the director of a new documentary exploring the success of the former prime minister, Michael Waldman spent several months living on Planet Blair and talking to former colleagues – including Peter Mandelson.

The unemployment rate among young people is at its worst level for more than a decade, official figures show.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the rate of unemployment lifted to 5.2 per cent in the three months to December, up from 5.1 per cent in the three months to November.

This was the highest since the three months to January 2021, and outside of the pandemic era, it marks the highest since the autumn of 2015.

Experts said young workers were among the hardest hit, with almost one in six left without a job.

The ONS said the unemployment rate for 16 to 24-year-olds surged to 16.1 per cent in the latest quarter – the highest level since early 2015.

The Resolution Foundation think tank said the UK’s youth unemployment is now higher than the EU average for the first time since records began in 2000, with the rate across Europe at 14.9 per cent in the final three months of last year.