Afternoon summary
- The government has won a vote in the House of Lords that will stop 16 and 17-year-olds voting in the referendum on whether Britain should remain in the EU. Last month peers voted by a majority of 82 in favour of lowering the franchise for this poll, but the government overturned that decision in the Commons, where it has a majority, and today the Lords effectively backed down. A move to reinstate votes at 16 in the bill, backed by Labour and the Lib Dems, was defeated by 263 votes to 246 - a majority 17. Explaining why the government was proposed to the idea, Lord Faulks, a justice minister, said:
There is a real danger that a change to the voting age for the referendum could undermine that. Rightly or wrongly a change to the franchise may be seen as an attempt to engineer the result. That perception would damage the public’s confidence in the result of the vote.
- Jeremy Corbyn has broken with tradition and opted for an official Christmas card that does not include a photograph of himself or his family. Needless to say, there has been much analysis of it on Twitter.
That’s all from me for today.
Thanks for the comments.
Government wins Lords vote to stop 16- and 17-year-olds voting in EU referendum
The government has won has won today’s vote in the House of Lords on votes at 16 in the EU referendum. An amendment backed by Labour and Lib Dem peers saying 16- and 17-year-olds should get the vote in the referendum was defeated by 263 votes to 246.
Originally in November peers voted in favour of letting 16- and 17-year-olds vote in the referendum by a majority of 82, but the House of Commons reversed this vote and the matter was deemed “financially privileged” - ie, one on which the Commons had the final say because it affected spending. Today’s amendment sought to address this by saying “low-cost means” should be used to ensure that 16- and 17-year-olds were registered, but some peers presumably felt the government was entitled to get its way and, as often happens, when it came to a confrontation the Lords blinked first.
The vote means the EU referendum bill will now become law very, very soon.
Updated
MPs denounce Sports Direct - Summary of the urgent question
- MPs have denounced Sports Direct and its boss, Mike Ashley, in the Commons. In a short debate triggered by an urgent question about the Guardian’s revelations about the firm, Chuka Umunna, the former shadow businesss secretary, said it was “a bad advert for British business”. He told MPs:
We know enough about the practices at Sports Direct plc, which has a branch in my constituency, to conclude that this company is a bad advert for British business and one with a culture of fear in the workplace which we would not wish to see repeated elsewhere. As the Institute of Directors has said, it is a scar on British business.
The Labour MP Dennis Skinner, who has the Sports Direct Shirebrook warehouse in his constituency, was even more blunt. He told MPs:
That man has not made £6bn because he’s a considerate employer. He’s a monster of a man that doesn’t even reply to MPs’ letters - I’ve sent him many. He’s got £6bn and he’s in the Sunday Times rich list because he’s the type of man that will not take any notice of HMRC unless this really government really means business. This man, Mike Ashley, would fit very nicely on millionaire’s row along with his pals [ie, on the Conservative front bench]. So this will be a test of the minister’s mettle; get stuck in .
The Labour MP David Winnick said:
It reminds one, does not not, of the early years of the last century, when workers were treated in such a contemptible way.
Most of the criticism came from Labour MPs, and Nick Boles, the business minister replying to the urgent question, pointedly chose not to condemn the firm (saying it was not his job to comment on individual cases). But the Conservative MP Marcus Fysh said Sports Direct “can have a somewhat aggressive attitude towards flexible working”.
- The Labour MP John Mann effectively accused Sports Direct of discriminating against native English speakers. In a question, Mann, who represents Bassetlaw, which is near the big Sports Direct Shirebrook warehouse, also suggested that employees were afraid to speak out because they were scared of losing their housing.
Everyone knows in our area you can’t get a job in the warehouse at Sports Direct if you are an English native speaker, despite 3,000 people working there, and there were a baby born in the toilets there. Why is it that there were over 80 ambulance visits over two years to Sports Direct? And it is possibly the case that employees are too scared and not allowed time off to go see the doctor, and therefore there is a misdirection of NHS resources? And might there also be the possibility that there’s tied housing, whereby people are too scared to speak because they are provided with a house to live in and the rent for it and the transport that they have to pay for to get to work. There needs to be a full investigation.
- Boles refused to order a specific government investigation into Sports Direct. But he said HM Revenue and Customs was free to launch its own inquiry proactively. It did not have to wait for employees to complain, he said. He also said any workers who did want to complain could ring the ACAS hotline anonymously.
- He praised the Guardian for its Sports Direct investigation.
In general I suspect that I do not often welcome an investigation by the Guardian newspaper but in this case I think it is absolutely vitally important that media organisations do investigate these things, because government is never going to be ale to pro-actively investigate every single employer in the country.
- He said the question as to whether workers had to be paid for the time they waited to be searched before leaving at the end of a shift was “an intensely vexed legal question”.
- He said that Sports Direct was entitled to dock people’s 15 minutes’ pay for arriving one minute late for work, but that they could not do so if this resulted in the worker getting less than the minimum wage for the 14 minutes that was worked.
- He said the government was putting an extra £3m into minimum wage enforcement this year.
Updated
The Unite union has set up an online petition urging Sports Direct to end its “shameful work practices”.
Time for decent pay and decent work! Show your support & challenge #SportsDirectShame https://t.co/RYufw6QqAo pic.twitter.com/MptXaDRc7B
— Unite the union (@unitetheunion) December 14, 2015
Stella Creasy, the Labour MP, says she is also concerned about the way some employers are using issues like tips to circumvent minimum wage legislation. Will Boles meet her to discuss this?
Boles says he will.
And that’s it. The statement is over. I will post a summary soon.
An MP urges the government to introduce a specific offence of exploitation. Boles says there is enough legislation available to tackle abuses of this kind already.
Labour’s John Mann says everyone know in his constituency that you cannot get a job at the Sports Direct warehouse in Shirebrook if they are a native English speaker. And why were there 80 ambulance visits in two years to the warehouse? People are scared to visit the doctor, he says. And he calls for an inquiry into the use of tied cottages relating to the depot. He says it is not just Sports Direct; it is the companies that supply it with staff too that are at fault, he suggests.
Boles says if any MPs knows of exploitation, they should report it.
Updated
David Mowat, a Conserative, says under the “national living wage” Sports Direct will have to pay people 11% more than they are getting now.
Labour’s Emily Thornberry says according to the ONS 250,000 people are not paid the minimum wage. Why are directors not prosecuted? Not paying the minimum wage is a criminal offence.
Boles says the government has introduced tougher steps to enforce the minimum wage than the Labour government did.
Labour’s David Winnick says the Guardian story highlighted the fear workers feel at Sports Direct. Some women are afraid to miss work even if their children are ill. This reminds us of conditions at the start of the last century, he says. And why did the Treasury not want to answer this question.
Boles says the government believes in deregulation. But some laws are absolute, and must be adhered to. Minimum wage laws are an example, as are health and safety laws.
Boles says no employer will want to receive the kind of attention that Sports Direct is getting in the Commons today.
Dennis Skinner says Sports Direct's Mike Ashley is 'a monster of a man'
Labour’s Dennis Skinner, who has the Shirebrook Sports Direct warehouse in his constituency, says the head of Sports Direct is “a monster of a man” who does not even reply to MPs’ letters. And Skinner says he has sent him many. This man, Mike Ashley, would fit very nicely on millionaire’s row along with his pals, he says (referring to the government front bench). So “get stuck in”, he says.
Boles says he does not care how famous Ashley is. However famous people are, they have to obey the law. If they don’t, the government will enforce it, he says.
Updated
Alan Mak, a Conservative, asks if it is true that some firms are already paying more than the national living wage.
Boles says this is extremely welcome. It underlines his point about how the government expects firms to go beyond their legal responsibilities.
Kevin Brennan, the shadow business minister, says the battle to enforce the minimum wage must be a continual one. What is the government’s estimate of how many workers are not paid the minimum wage? And how many firms are fined for not paying the minimum wage.
He asks Boles to order an investigation into Sports Direct.
It is easy to talk the talk on the minimum wage, he says. But when will the government walk the walk.
Boles says he is happy to acknowledge the minimum wage was a Labour achievement. There are more supporters of New Labour now on the government benches, he suggests, than on the Labour benches. He wonders if Labour will also welcome the national living wage when it comes into force.
He says more than 750 employers have received penalties for not paying the minimum wage.
Boles says that he does not often welcome investigations by the Guardian, but that in this case he thinks it is very important for the media to investigate abuses of this kind because the government cannot investigate all these cases itself.
Marcus Fysh, a Conservative, says Sports Direct has a “somewhat aggressive” approach to flexible working. Has the government thought of introducing a general rule to cover exploitation, similar to the new general law banning generalised tax avoidance.
Boles says the government is not looking at this, but that he is happy to have a conversation about it.
John Bercow, the Commons Speaker, says the Treasury told him this morning that this was not a suitable subject for an urgent question. He says he decided that it was, and that he would allow this urgent question.
Boles says workers should not be afraid of calling the ACAS hotline where they can report minimum wage abuses. It is entirely confidential, he says.
He says HMRC can investigate pro-actively. They do not have to wait for a complaint.
He says the question of whether time spent waiting to be searched is working time or not is “intensely vexed”. But anything that does count as work must be included in the time to which the minimum wage applies.
And, if someone loses 15 minutes’ pay for arriving one minute late for work, the minimum wage law applies to the 14 minutes that they are working, he says.
He says obeying the law is the minimum that applies to employers. He says he would hope that employers go beyond this.
Updated
Chuka Umunna says Sports Direct is 'a bad advert for British business'
Chuka Umunna, the former shadow business secretary, is responding.
He says Sports Direct is “a bad advert for British business and one with a culture of fear in the workplace that we would not wish to see repeated elsewhere”.
He says worker are afraid of reporting complaints at Sports Direct. So will HMRC investigate off its own bat?
He asks if it is right to Sports Direct not to pay workers when they are having to wait to be searched before they leave at the end of the day.
And is it right for Sports Direct to dock pay if people arrive just a minute late for work.
Updated
Nick Boles, the business minister, is responding.
He says he cannot comment on individual cases.
But the government takes enforcing the minimum wage very seriously. The budget for this has gone up from £8.1m in 2010 to £13m in 2015-16.
He urges anyone who knows about the minimum wage not being paid to report the offending companies.
He says the government has increased the penalties for not paying the minimum wage. From April the maximum amount firms will have to pay will go up from 100% of arrears to 200%.
He says the governments wants to be able to ensure all workers get at least the minimum wage.
Chuka Umunna asks for a statement on Sports Direct and its compliance with minimum wage legislation.
Urgent Commons question on Sports Direct
We’re about to get an urgent Commons question on Sports Direct, and the Guardian’s revelations about the company.
Here’s Patrick Wintour’s preview story.
And here’s how it starts.
A Treasury minister has been summoned to the Commons to explain what the government is doing to ensure Sports Direct pays the minimum wage.
The Speaker, John Bercow, granted a request for an urgent question on Monday afternoon from the former shadow business secretary Chuka Umunna to ask ministers what they are doing to enforce the minimum wage in this case.
The move was prompted by a Guardian investigation that revealed many Sports Direct workers effectively earn below the minimum wage because they were forced to wait for about 15 minutes after each shift to be searched by security staff.
The retailer’s working practices contribute to many staff being paid an effective rate of about £6.50 an hour against the statutory rate of £6.70 – potentially saving the FTSE 100 firm millions of pounds a year at the expense of some of the poorest workers in the UK.
No 10 admits it may drop part two of the Leveson inquiry
At the Number 10 lobby briefing I asked if the government still intended to go ahead with the second phase of the Leveson inquiry - the one meant to consider the specific phone-hacking allegations that could not be considered during part one because they were subject to criminal proceedings. As I reported earlier, the prime minister’s spokewoman said there had been no change in the government’s position. (See 12.53pm.)
A Downing Street spokesman has just been touch with an update. He said that, although the Crown Prosecution Service announced on Friday that there would be no further charges in relation to phone hacking, three investigations were still ongoing in relation to the two related police inquiries, Operation Elveden (looking at payments to the police) and Operation Tuleta (looking at computer hacking). So it was too early for a decision, the spokesman said.
But the actual words he used were telling. He said:
We have always been clear that a decision on whether or not to take forward part two of the Leveson inquiry will not be taken until all criminal trials [are over].
A good rule of Westminster journalism is that, whenever someone says “As we’ve always said ....” or something to that effect, they’re often trying to hide the story. David Cameron has not always been undecided as to whether there would be a part two of the inquiry. When he originally announced the inquiry, he explicitly said that a second part of the inquiry “will examine the extent of unlawful or improper conduct at the News of the World and other newspapers, and the way in which management failures may have allowed it to happen”.
Now Number 10 is effectively conceding that it may drop part two. This will come as no surprise to anyone (why would Cameron want to reopen hostilities with Rupert Murdoch, particularly now that he heads a majority government?) but it’s good to have it on the record.
Jeremy Corbyn's Christmas card
The Labour party has just sent out a email showing the design of Jeremy Corbyn’s Christmas card. Here’s the front.
And here’s the back.
McDonnell says parliamentary Labour party only really split on two issues
John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, has given an interview to Holyrood, the Scottish parliament magazine, and they’ve written it up in an article which is long, more than usually revealing and at time even funny. The whole thing is here, but here are the highlights.
- McDonnell claimed the parliamentary Labour party was only really split on two issues: Trident and foreign military interventions.
Look, on domestic politics, there is virtually nothing between us, absolutely nothing, other than some want to go faster than others. There’s nothing contentious but for two areas: Trident – and that is coming up – and foreign policy when it comes to decisions about war and peace. On everything else, there is not much between us. And what people are excited about is having to think about new ideas.
- He said he wanted bankers and business leaders to play a bigger role in advising government.
[Bankers] have a role ... but have to recognise their own significance as well and what I don’t understand is why they aren’t banging at the door of government a bit more. Take Harold Wilson’s days in government, he wasn’t just doing beer and sandwiches for trade unionists at Number 10, what he did have was key players round the table giving advice on the future economy and that’s what I want to get back to. And key players are the entrepreneurs themselves from every sector, including finance, the workers themselves but also those at the leading edge of new ideas, and I want to have them involved in a structural way in government.
- He said some Labour MPs were facing “a huge culture shock” because the party was “moving towards being more of a social movement than a traditional political party”.
- He said that Tony Blair’s condemnation of Jeremy Corbyn during the Labour leadership contest had a “very positive impact” on the campaign. Gordon Brown’s anti-Corbyn intervention helped too, he said.
- He says his experience of being “fitted up” by the police on an assault charge before he became an MP encouraged him to take up miscarriage of justice cases. (He was taken to court, but the case was dismissed.)
- He said that he was interested in the way “more and more people just don’t get their views from the written media anymore” and that the Labour leadership was now increasingly trying to find alternatives to the mainstream press to communicate with people.
I just don’t think they [the media] get us or the new politics that is emerging. But we have taken a view that we will try and work with the media as best we can and to be fair, there is some that will give you a fair crack of the whip. But the written media, in England, in particular, is so rabidly anti-left or anti anything new and so rabidly conservative with a big and small ‘c’, it is difficult to break through.
We have concentrated on the media that we can work with but, more importantly, the live media because it can’t be edited, misinterpreted or wilfully abused.
- He said that he turned down an invitation to campaign with Corbyn during the leadership election because he thought “it would look like a tour of Last of the Summer Wine”.
Updated
Lunchtime summary
- Britain is prepared to listen to “counter-proposals” from other EU countries about how to curb migration but none has yet been forthcoming, Philip Hammond, the foreign secretary, has said. At the Number 10 lobby briefing the prime minister’s spokeswoman refused to rule out David Cameron producing alternative proposals himself at this week’s EU summit. She also dismissed Boris Johnson’s call for Cameron to demand an opt-out from EU free movement laws. (See 12.53m.)
The Labour MP John Mann seems to like Jess Phillips’ interview with Owen Jones. (See 10.52am.) He thinks she should be Labour leader.
I told @jessphillips that she should be #Labour leader four months ago. She thought I was joking...#new generation https://t.co/NnWAKMUOFW
— John Mann (@JohnMannMP) December 14, 2015
I watched Yvette Cooper repeatedly not answer Andrew Neil @dailypolitics yesterday and was reminded how institutionalised New Labour became
— John Mann (@JohnMannMP) December 14, 2015
@jessphillips @guardian what the people want are politicians who say what they think but share their common values.
— John Mann (@JohnMannMP) December 14, 2015
Number 10 lobby briefing - Summary
Here are the main points from the Number 10 lobby briefing.
- Downing Street refused to rule out David Cameron putting forward an alternative plan to curb EU migration into the UK in the light of the lack of support amongst other EU leaders for his proposal to stop EU migrants claiming in-work benefits for four years. The prime minister’s spokeswoman said that Cameron’s letter to Donald Tusk, which set out this demand and others, would form “the basis of the discussion” at the EU summit. Philip Hammond, the foreign secretary, said this morning that EU leaders did not support this idea, but that they were not proposing alternative ideas. (See 10.09am.) Asked if Cameron would produce his own “plan B”, the spokeswoman refused to rule it out. Asked if Cameron was interested in a plan for the UK to be able to use an “emergency brake” to stop EU migration if services were being overwhelmed, she did not reject the idea but said it was not the proposal on the table. She said that Cameron wanted to address the issues the British people care about and that one of these was the level of EU migration to the UK. He was looking at benefits, she said, because the benefits system was a “pull factor” for immigrants.
- The spokeswoman played down the significance of the four-year benefit ban demand in Cameron’s EU renegotiation. She admitted that Cameron’s demands relating to welfare were much more difficult than his demands relating to three other areas (sovereignty, competitiveness and economic governance). But she that Cameron’s demands relating to benefits incorporated “a number of proposals”, including: stopping child benefit being paid to children living outside the UK; ensuring the EU migrants coming to the UK have to have a job; and looking at issues like over-stayers and “abuses of free movement”. She said that limiting EU migrants’ access to in-work benefits was one of the proposals, but she listed the others too.
- The spokeswoman rejected Boris Johnson’s call for the UK to have an opt-out from the EU’s free movement of labour rules. Asked about this, the spokeswoman said:
The prime minister has been very clear that he supports the principle of free movement.
She was also relatively dismissive of Johnson’s claim that Britain could get a Danish-style opt-out. (See 9.02am.) Johnson was right to point out that there was already “flexibility” in the EU, she said. But she suggested his Danish analogy was not helpful.
[This is] a very specific niche area where Denmark has some specific agreement that is linked to the purchase of second homes in Denmark, when we are looking for something more significant and more far-reaching in terms of benefits applying across the European Union.
- The spokeswoman rejected Johnson’s claim that EU leaders have given Cameron “the bum’s rush” in his EU renegotiation. “Now our friends in Brussels have given us the bum’s rush,” Johnson wrote in his Telegraph column today. Asked if this was accurate, the spokeswoman said: “No. Those discussions are ongoing.”
- She said EU leaders would have their main discussion about Cameron’s renegotiation demands when they met for dinner at the summit on Thursday.
- The spokeswoman refused to deny today’s Financial Times splash (subscription) saying ministers are thinking of nationalising Rolls-Royce nuclear submarine business because of financial problems facing the company. Asked about this, the spokeswoman said:
Rolls-Royce is a major contributor to our economy. It’s an important supplier to the government. We will continue to work closely with them. I’m not going to get into speculation about the company’s future.
UPDATE: I corrected this quote after Number 10 pointed out that earlier I wrongly quoted the spokeswoman as saying “specifics”, not “speculation”.
Monday's FT front page: Cabinet weighs nationalisation of Rolls-Royce subs business #tomorrowspaperstoday #bbcpapers pic.twitter.com/x19nnM6z8j
— Nick Sutton (@suttonnick) December 13, 2015
- The spokeswoman refused to say whether the government would try to resolve the dispute between the Commons and the Lords over the EU referendum bill today, or whether it could go on until later this week.
- She said that there had not been any change to the government’s commitment to holding a second stage of the Leveson inquiry to investigate specific phone hacking allegations at News International. The specific claims were not covered by the original inquiry because criminal proceedings were ongoing when the inquiry was set up. At the time Cameron said the inquiry would hold a second set of hearings when the criminal proceedings were over. At the end of last week the Crown Prosecution Services declared proceedings were over. Asked if the government was still committed to part two of the inquiry, the spokeswoman said: “I don’t think there has been any change.” (Many observers will be very surprised if part two of the inquiry does actually go ahead, but Downing Street is clearly not minded to announce it is being dropped just yet.)
Updated
I’m just back from the Number 10 lobby briefing. As usual when a briefing goes on longer than expected, it wasn’t because we were being told lots of revealing things; it was because we weren’t being told much (which is why the questions kept coming). But there was a put down, of sorts, to Boris Johnson.
I will post a summary soon.
My colleague Owen Jones has been interviewing the Labour MP Jess Phillips about Jeremy Corbyn. Phillips told him that she was very frustrated with how he was doing as Labour leader. She said that if there was an election now the party might do worse than it did in May, that his comments about shoot-to-kill were a mistake, and that he was spending too much time on issues like Trident that did not matter to her constituents. She said she would try to help him improve, but that if she thought he was damaging the party’s chances at the general election, she would try to get rid of him. Asked if she wanted to change the leader, she replied:
I would do anything that I felt was going to make the Labour party win the next election because, if I don’t have that attitude, all I’m doing is colluding with the Tories. If that is making Jeremy better, I will roll my sleeves up. If that’s not going to happen, and I’ve said that to him and his staff to their faces, the day that it becomes that you are hurting us more than you are helping us, I won’t knife you in the back, I’ll knife you in the front.
I’m off to the Number 10 lobby briefing shortly. I will post again after 11.30.
Philip Hammond, the foreign secretary, is in Brussels for a meeting of EU foreign ministers. Speaking to reporters, he indicated that Britain was willing to compromise over its demand to be allowed to stop EU migrants claiming in-work benefits for four years - but that other EU leaders need to propose an alternative means of addressing the immigration problem.
Here is Hammond’s key quote, from the Times’s Bruno Waterfield. Hammond said:
The four-year waiting time for access to benefits has been a consistent demand from us. We have put that demand on the table and we have heard that a lot of our partners in Europe have concerns about it. So far we haven’t heard any counter proposals, we haven’t heard any alternative suggestions that will deliver the same effect in a different way.
But we have made very clear that if people have other ideas that will deliver on this very important agenda for the British people then we are absolutely read to listen to them and enter into a dialogue. But at the moment the only proposition on the table is our four-year proposal.
Updated
Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, has been visiting a postal depot in London this morning to back a campaign by the CWU postal workers union to preserve the universal postal service and workers’ terms and conditions. As the Press Association reports, he said the Mount Pleasant site was one of the most recognised buildings in the world, but “sadly” it was not publicly owned since Royal Mail was privatised. Part of the site has been sold for housing but Corbyn said he doubted there would be any significant social homes built.
He also said that, since Royal Mail’s privatisation, new threats were emerging which could impact on workers’ pay and conditions as well as to the universal service obligation (USO), which guarantees delivery to every address in the country for the same price. “The consequences are that rural communities could end up with no postal service whatsoever,” he said.
Later this week David Cameron heads for Brussels for a summit that will discuss the renegotiation of Britain’s terms of membership that Cameron is demanding before the planned referendum on EU membership. We are no longer expecting the final deal this week - that won’t come until another summit in February - but we will learn more about the progress Cameron is (or isn’t) making towards achieving his aims.
And today’s he’s got some advice from Boris Johnson. In his Telegraph column, the Conservative MP, mayor of London and possible future Tory leadership contender, Johnson says Britain should demand an opt-out from EU free movement rules, along the lines of the opt-out the Danes have that allows them to stop foreigners buying property until they have lived in the country for five years.
If you want a classic example of how the EU survives, while recognising national particularity, look at Danish property law. There is nothing to stop a Dane buying a home in London or any other part of the UK, under basic EU principles. It doesn’t work the other way round; and everyone understands why the Danes want it that way. It goes back at least to the Schleswig-Holstein question of 1863, or even before. One way or another the Danes don’t want the Germans buying up bits of Jutland. They want those villages to be Danish; they like to see red and white Danish flags flying above the clapboard homes ...
Like the Danes, Britain is a special case. It is not just that we are one of the biggest magnets for immigrants – we share that status with Germany. We are unlike any other EU country (especially Germany) in the current rate of population growth, which has been largely – though by no means entirely – driven by recent immigration.
In London alone, we will need to find another 165,000 school places in the next five years. We will need to build another 80 secondary schools. That is a big expense for the taxpayer. As I have said many times in this space, I am a passionate believer in the benefits of migration. Waves of talent from overseas have helped to make our capital the most dynamic urban economy in Europe. But it should be up to us in this country to decide – as they do in America and Australia – whom to admit and when to admit them.
I will be covering reaction to this. And later I will be focusing on the EU referendum bill because the House of Lords will again vote on an amendment that would allow 16 and 17-year-olds to vote, and, if they approve it, MPs are expected to vote it down again very soon afterwards. The bill is now in the final stages of its passage through parliament, this is the one issue yet to be resolved, and we’re into “ping pong” - a rally between Commons and Lords as they bat the bill back and forth until one side gives way.
Here is the agenda for the day.
11am: Number 10 lobby briefing.
3pm: Peers start their debate on the EU referendum bill. Later the bill will return to the Commons.
As usual, I will also be covering breaking political news as it happens, as well as bringing you the best reaction, comment and analysis from the web. I will post a summary at lunchtime and another in the afternoon.
If you want to follow me or contact me on Twitter, I’m on@AndrewSparrow.
