Environment secretary Steve Reed says trip to US involving Labour staffers not paid for or organised by Labour party

Good morning. Steve Reed, the environment secretary, has been doing the morning interview round, and he expected to be talking about the appointment of an independent commission, led by the former Treasury official and former deputy governor of the Bank of England, to consider the future of the water industry. Details were briefed out last night, here is the news release, and here is Helena Horton’s story.

But instead Reed has spent the morning fending off a rather bizarre story about the Trump campaign filing a complaint with election regulators in the US alleging that the Labour party is interfering in the US presidential election. Eleni Courea has the details here.