Hello and welcome to the UK politics live blog.

Prime minister Andy Burnham will be working from No 10 North in Manchester today, where he will chair what some in government are referring to as the “growth situation room”.

He will be working alongside his chancellor John Healey, first secretary of state Lou Haigh, housing secretary Angela Rayner and housing minister Sally Jameson, while regional mayors and exchequer secretary Dan Tomlinson will be expected to dial in.

It comes as the government ran a larger than expected £1.8bn deficit in July. City economists had expected a shortfall of zero for July, a month when Treasury receipts tend to be swollen by self-assessment income tax payments.

At £17.1bn, the self-assessment tax paid in July was £1.7bn higher than the same month last year. However, the Office for National Statistics said the government still ran a £1.8bn deficit, as “spending growth outpaced receipts”.

In the first four months of this financial year the cumulative deficit was £56.7bn – lower than last year but still running £2.3bn ahead of the Office for Budget Responsibility forecast.

Although Burnham is not expected to do any media following the meeting at No 10 North, Politico reports that announcements are expected. We will bring you news of those if that is indeed the case.

In other developments:

• Burnham said yesterday that fly-tippers will be forced to pay for the clean-up when they dump waste illegally. The prime minister laid out his plans to crackdown on waste crimes as he visited an illegal dump in West Yorkshire.

• Racism and sexism have become normalised in Britain, the equalities minister has said, as she warned that young men were being sucked into violent misogyny by the “cesspit” of social media. Bridget Phillipson said she was increasingly worried about how commonplace misogyny and racism had become, fuelled by online interactions and statements by politicians she said would not have been acceptable a few years ago.

• Phillipson suggested her sweeping reforms to special educational needs provision could be adapted to give parents greater protections if they are unhappy about the service being provided for their children. The former education secretary told the Guardian ministers were open to making changes to the plans, which were announced earlier this year but which have since been subject to consultation.

• Education Lucy Powell on Thursday addressed the GCSE gender gap, which shrank to its narrowest point this century. Almost one in four boys in England received top grades in maths while results in English improved across the board. “The white working-class review that was recently done, that was one things it found, that more boys need to see the purpose of education, they need to see the line of sight into work,” Powell told the Press Association.

• Meanwhile, Burnham told reporters that funding for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s security arrangements on their return to the UK was a “private matter”, the Press Association reports. Harry and Meghan are expected to return to live in Britain later this month. After six years in the US, they will be moving with their two children, Prince Archie, seven, and Princess Lilibet, five, to a non-royal residence outside London.