It’s time to draw a veil over this live blog. There’s not much point in having a closing summary, as it would be much the same as the lunchtime version, perhaps with the addition of the dropping of the education bill, the suspension of Jenny Tonge and the UK intervention over Calais.
So: thank you very much for reading, and Andrew will be back next week.
UK protests at children stranded outside Calais migrant camp
This from my colleague Alan Travis:
The prospect of 50 refugee children being stranded outside the Calais migrant camp for a second night has triggered a high level protest from the British government and a demand that the children be provided with an immediate safe place to go.
The home secretary, Amber Rudd, spoke to her French counterpart, Bernard Cazenuve, on Thursday afternoon, telling him that the children who remained in Calais had to be properly protected.
“She reaffirmed the UK’s commitment to working with the French to make sure all minors eligible to come to the UK continue to be transferred as quickly as possible,” a Home Office spokesperson said.
“Any child either not eligible or not in the secure area of the camp should be cared for and safeguarded by the French authorities. We understand specialist facilities have been made available elsewhere in France to ensure this happens.”
The clear implication of the pressure from the home secretary is that the promised buses should be provided for those refugee children who have been pushed outside the camp to take them to a new reception centre.
The Home Office confirmed that a further group of Calais children arrived in Croydon on Thursday with more expected in the coming days.
The call followed renewed pressure from amongst others Yvette Cooper, the chair of the Commons home affairs committee. She said had been in touch again with Home Office ministers to urge them to put serious pressure on the French authorities to provide an immediate safe place for children to go.
“They also need to accelerate the British assessments and transfers to get more children and teenagers into stable accommodation and to urgently free up more places in the container camp too,” Cooper said.
“Children need safe accommodation to stay in tonight – they cannot be left to sleep rough by the side of the road again. This has to be sorted before it is too late.”
Updated
The written statement in which the Department for Education smuggled out the news that it had dropped an education bill which had been in the Queen’s speech was certainly worded in an opaque way – on this link to the statement it’s the last sentence of the fourth paragraph.
This seems to have confused Labour’s education team, which has released a statement from Angela Rayner, the shadow education secretary, saying the plan for new grammar schools had “been abandoned as a result of the huge pressure Labour has put the government under”.
But it’s not the grammar school plans. This was an entirely different education bill, mainly related to obliging schools to become academies, some of which had already been dropped.
Updated
My colleague, Rowena Mason, has written about the government’s refusal to say what, if any, special deal has been promised to Nissan in return for the Japanese carmaker committing to its Sunderland plant. Here’s an extract:
Downing Street is refusing to disclose what state support has been given to Nissan in order to convince the car manufacturer to boost production Sunderland plant, despite its worries about Brexit.
N0 10 insisted there was no “sweetheart deal” with the Japanese company but acknowledged that Theresa May had given some assurances to the wider industry that they would protected from the impact of Brexit.
The prime minister hailed the car company’s decision as “fantastic news” and a vote of confidence in the UK, as Nissan said it will build the next Qashqai and X-Trail models at its Sunderland factory, safeguarding more than 7,000 jobs. The company said this had been made possible by government “assurances and support”.
The news that thousands of jobs would be safe for some years was widely welcomed but May quickly came under political pressure from Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn to be transparent about any private sweeteners offered to Nissan to encourage it to make the announcement.
She has met privately with Nissan executives and Greg Clark, the business secretary, has also met its representatives on a recent trip to Japan....
No 10 refused to say what has been promised to the car industry in the aftermath of Brexit and declined to say if any public money was involved, although it signalled it had not made any declaration to the EU about a proposal to offer state aid.
“The assurances are that we will get the best possible deal from
leaving the EU,” May’s deputy official spokesman said. “There was no special deal for Nissan.”
Asked whether Nissan had been promised it will not face tariffs when it exports to Europe, he added: “I can’t be any clearer. The dialogue we’ve had with Nissan as we do with other companies is a reassurance that we are determined to get the British industrial sector the best possible deal. It is a reassurance. There is no deal. We have a dialogue with Nissan and many other companies.”
Liberal Democrats suspend Jenny Tonge
My colleague Harriet Sherwood has filed this:
The Liberal Democrats have suspended Jenny Tonge, a member of the House of Lords, from the party following renewed criticism by the Jewish community over alleged antisemitic comments.
Tonge was previously suspended from the Lib Dems in 2012 over alleged anti-Israel comments. She has not taken the party’s whip in the Lords since.
A spokesman for the Liberal Democrats said: “She has been suspended. She was not a member of our group in the House of Lords, she was an independent peer, she has had her membership suspended.”
He added: “We take her comments very seriously and have acted accordingly.”
Thursday’s move came after Tonge hosted a meeting at the House of Lords this week at which Israel was reportedly compared to terror group Islamic State and Jews were blamed for the Holocaust. The remarks were made by a speaker at the meeting, which was organised by the Palestinian Return Centre, which live-streamed the event on its Facebook page.
The Israeli embassy in London said the meeting was a “shameful event which gave voice to racist tropes against Jews and Israelis alike”.
Updated
There has been a very quietly-announced change to the government’s education plans. My colleague, Richard Adams, has more:
The government has announced it is dropping the education bill unveiled in this year’s Queen’s speech, abandoning a raft of proposals that had already proved unpopular but vowing to press ahead with plans to reintroduce grammar schools.
The bill had been introduced by former education secretary Nicky Morgan in March but was quickly shorn of its most controversial clauses, including forcing all state schools in England to become academies by 2020, and ending statutory places for parent governor.
Justine Greening, the education secretary, signaled the ditching of the bill with elliptic phrases in a written statement to parliament on the unrelated Technical and Further Education bill.
“We have rightly reflected on our strategic priorities and the proposals for education legislation put forward at the time of the Queen’s speech,” Greening said in the statement.
“My department has renewed its focus on ensuring everything we do drives towards improving social mobility with an emphasis on not just the most disadvantaged families but also on those that are just about managing. Our ambition remains that all schools should benefit from the freedom and autonomy that academy status brings.
“Our focus, however, is on building capacity in the system and encouraging schools to convert voluntarily. No changes to legislation are required for these purposes and therefore we do not require wider education legislation in this session to make progress on our ambitious education agenda.”
With two bills already in the legislative pipeline – the Children and Social Work bill and the Higher Education and Research bill – and a third announced today, the Department for Education was unable to cope with the further workload entailed by the remnants of Morgan’s bill.
A quick note: earlier I mentioned that the by-election for Richmond Park, at which Zac Goldsmith will seek to re-take his seat while standing as an independent, was likely to take place on 1 December. This date has now been confirmed.
Our latest Politics Weekly podcast is up. My colleague Rowena Mason hosts chat on everything from Heathrow and Zac Goldsmith to Calais.
Emily Thornberry, the shadow foreign secretary, has written a long Facebook post about her decision to use an opposition day debate in parliament to demand the UK withdraw support for the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen, which has been implicated in numerous civilian casualties.
In it she details the reason why she felt the motion was necessary, saying support for the Saudis in Yemen “must be suspended until the alleged violations of international humanitarian law in that conflict have been fully and independently investigated”
The motion was defeated by 283 to 193, a tally that reflects the fact that a number of Labour MPs did not vote. Thornberry is critical of both this and the Conservative opposition to the move:
[Withdrawing UK support] would have been the right message to send to the rest of the world. That would have reflected what we should stand for as a country. And that is why I was so disgusted that all but one brave Tory MP voted against sending such a message, and disappointed that some of my Labour colleagues abstained from doing so.
Some Brexit hotline news from my colleague Libby Brooks.
When is a hotline not a hotline? Nicola Sturgeon revealed at this lunchtime’s first minister’s questions that the so-called Brexit hotline to David Davis, offered to devolved leaders by Theresa May at their meeting on Monday, has a significant time delay.
“The only new information we got on Monday was that the UK government has set up what they have called a ‘hotline’ to David Davis – I can share with the Chamber today that [Scottish government Brexit minister] Michael Russell’s office called that hotline this week.”
“He called it just before midday on Tuesday, it took until after 6pm yesterday to actually get David Davis on the hotline, that’s 36 hours. So yes, there is now a telephone line we can call, it’s just currently not very hot.”
Lunchtime summary
It’s a slightly late lunchtime summary, but just about qualifies:
- John McDonnell has used a speech in London on Labour’s position over EU departure to call for a “people’s Brexit” as against what he called a “bankers’ Brexit”.
- The business secretary, Greg Clark, has refused to say whether Nissan was offered a one-off deal over Brexit terms before the Japanese carmaker committed to manufacturing two models at its Sunderland plant.
- While Theresa May has hailed the Nissan deal as “fantastic news”, Jeremy Corbyn has called on the government to make public any inducements offered.
- The attorney general, Jeremy Wright, has raised the possibility of a law change after the acquittal for rape of Ched Evans, in which the re-trial heard details of the sexual history of the footballer’s accuser.
- Michael Gove has used an interview to describe his decision to run for prime minister “a mistake”. He also predicted that the UK would leave both the EU’s single market and customs union after Brexit.
- Ukip has announced it will not stand a candidate against Zac Goldsmith in his upcoming by-election, saying he resigned as an MP “on a matter of principle” over Heathrow expansion.
Updated
Jeremy Corbyn has called for the details of any government deal with Nissan to be made public. On a visit to Blackburn to see motor mechanic apprentices, he said (quotes via PA):
It must be made public, because it is public money that will be used if there are any inducements that have been offered and quite obviously, if you are offering big inducements to one industry or one manufacturer, then all the others will quite reasonably say, ‘Well, what about us?’
We are only a few months into Brexit and we don’t know what the terms of the agreement are between Nissan and the government.
I’m pleased there’s going to be continued investment in Sunderland that protects those jobs and obviously helps to develop manufacturing industry, but the concerns are still there. We have to have market access in Europe in order to keep British engineering industries going.
In a political endorsement that Zac Goldsmith might not entirely welcome, Ukip has backed the now-former MP for Richmond Park over his opposition to the expansion of Heathrow.
Ukip has also decided to not stand a candidate against Goldsmith, who is seeking re-election as an independent. The Ukip candidate took 4.2% of the vote in the 2015 election, finishing fifth.
You’ll remember that some Labour MPs called for their party to not oppose the Lib Dems in seeking to re-take the seat, but were rebuffed. The Greens, meanwhile – who got 6% of the vote in 2015 – are reportedly thinking about withdrawing their candidate to help the Lib Dems.
A Ukip spokesman said:
Zac Goldsmith has resigned on a matter of principle and Ukip admire him for having the courage to do so. Ukip have always believed that Gatwick was a preferred option to Heathrow.
Recognising Zac as a principled man, who was fully committed to helping get Britain out of the European Union, Ukip Leader Nigel Farage, in conjunction with our national executive committee, have agreed that we will not be fielding a candidate in the upcoming by-election for Richmond Park.
It’s a bit delayed, but I’ve finally got a full copy of John McDonnell’s speech on Brexit. Here’s a few sections from it:
The EU is a flawed institution, but we judged it better to fight for its reform than to leave. By a majority, the referendum shows that the British people made a different choice.
Britain voted to leave the EU, and that decision should be and must be respected. We have to now think about what Britain after Brexit will be like.
As the negotiations get underway, we will face a series of choices. “Hard” versus “soft” Brexit does not cover it. We will need to decide on our openness to trade, investment, and migration.
Labour will always prioritise supporting jobs, growth, and the public finances in making those choices.
But this is not only about getting the best possible deal for the British people in any negotiations. It is about our values, and who we are as a society. It is about our identity, as much as it is about the kind of economy we live in.
And:
There ought to be a political consensus on finding a deal that protects jobs, prosperity, and the public finances. Yet there is a minority Tory opinion that favours a scorched earth approach. They are making the running in the government’s own Brexit negotiations.
The government is hurtling towards a chaotic Brexit that will damage our economy, and hurt the poorest and most vulnerable most of all. By pulling up the drawbridge and tearing up longstanding ties to Europe, we will inflict huge and unnecessary pain on our society.
Yet a hard-line Tory minority believe that if we allow market forces to tear through our society in the wake of Brexit, we will emerge a more productive society. It is the fantasy of turning our whole country into a giant offshore tax haven, with rock-bottom wages and no public services....
Let me be clear: those who voted Conservative in 2015 are not the same as the Tory establishment. Like me, you will have friends who have voted Conservative. They don’t want a bankers’ Brexit any more than I do.
The simple truth is that the Tory establishment cannot be trusted to make a success of Brexit. They want to take control for themselves, not the many. They want to turn Britain into a Singapore of the north Atlantic.
And:
We are also committed to making sure that Brexit works for everyone not an elite few. The Tories want to cut special deals for bankers, and cut taxes for big multinationals.
Labour would work with our European neighbours to protect our key industries like steel, and negotiate deals with the EU to make sure big multinationals like Google pay their fair share in tax.
Labour will take back the economic levers of power currently in the hands of the EU, such as state aid rules, and return them to the people.
Not a bankers’ Brexit for the lucky few, but a people’s Brexit for the many.
Business secretary refuses to say if Nissan was granted special deal
The business secretary, Greg Clark, has just treated listeners of BBC Radio 4’s World at One to a masterclass in political waffling. By my count, host Martha Kearney asked him six times whether the government had struck some sort of deal with Nissan over potential post-Brexit tariffs to persuade the carmaker to build new models in its Sunderland plant.
Each time Clark answered an entirely different question, and at great length. Not a man afraid of numerous sub-clauses in a sentence, he at times resembled a contestant on another Radio 4 show, Just a Minute, seeking to run down the clock without actually saying anything of note.
To give you a flavour, here’s Clark’s first two answers, in full:
I think we’ve established a clear understanding of the seriousness of the government’s intention to make sure that the car manufacturing industry not only retains its competitiveness, but actually, through our commitment through the industrial strategy we’re developing for investment in research and innovation and science – especially on very important technologies like electric vehicles – that we are going to be even more a magnet for investment in the future.
And over the weeks that I’ve been having conversations with Nissan, and indeed other companies, I think we do have mutual confidence that this is going to be a very exciting place to invest, and that’s what we agreed.
And:
We talked about the Brexit negotiation and obviously it is something that was in their minds, but the first thing we were able to show was that we are absolutely determined to do a good deal with our European friends and neighbours.
There’s strong mutual interest in the automotive sector in particular, where there is mutual exporting from one country to another, and from Britain to the rest of the EU, supply chains are quite integrated. So we not only have the ambition and the intention but actually good grounds for looking forwards to a good relationship here.
A bit later, Clark came close to an actual answer on one point, saying there had not been a specific deal on compensation over possible tariffs, but that was as precise as it got:
There’s no question of financial compensation over tariffs, because we’ve said that what is necessary is that we are going to maintain the competitiveness of the sector.
Updated
I’m still lacking a copy of John McDonnell’s Brexit speech, but here are some more full quotes from it via PA:
Labour are not about to make cynical promises like the Conservatives on reducing migrant numbers, knowing full well they can’t be met on the scale, or timescale, with the methods they propose.
It is not migrants [who are] to blame for low pay and insecurity at work, or the high cost of housing, it is the failure of our whole economic model, which is not supplying the investment in work, or in housing, that people need. We have to change the model.
What we experienced during the referendum ... people voted on a whole range of issues, one of which was their concern about the low standard of living. They actually looked at migration being exploited by employers and others to undermine that standard of living.
What we will negotiate is a future with Europe that protects people’s standards of living, that doesn’t allow migration to be used and exploited in that way. And in that way I believe we can build a coherent, cohesive Britain in the future.
Updated
Gove predicts UK will leave EU single market and customs union
Michael Gove, who has in the last couple of days sat on more sofas than a new homeowner touring Ikea, has just been on BBC2’s Daily Politics, where he faced a slightly less bruising time than he did earlier on Sky News.
Asked about his attitude to how the UK should manage Brexit, Gove said he was certain this would involve quitting the EU’s single market, as well as probably leaving the bloc’s customs union:
I don’t have the same degree of 100% certainty I do about the single market, but I think it’s pretty clear we should be outside the customs union too.
Gove argued that leaving the single market would be “a liberation”, and pointed to today’s news about Nissan, describing this as “the best news Sunderland has had since Paolo di Canio was sacked”.
Updated
I’m still awaiting the full text of John McDonnell’s speech – perhaps it’s being sent in the post – but in the interim, my colleague Jessica Elgot has sent some details of what the shadow chancellor said about today’s Nissan announcement in a post-address Q&A:
John McDonnell, Labour’s shadow chancellor, criticised the deal done with Nissan as a “chaotic” strategy. In a speech where he had criticised the government for appearing to prioritise financial services over manufacturing and small businesses, said there had been no public discussion of the deal hashed out for the car maker.
“We know nothing about it,” he said. “Are they literally going to decide factory by factory which one gets support? We have to have a comprehensive plan, and this is chaos at the moment.”
“We are trying to get a consensus and heal the divisions the referendum brought and we cannot do that with secret deals behind closed doors. It will divide our country once more.
“The first deal looked like it would be protecting financial services, paid for by others. And now with Nissan, other manufacturers are saying what are we going to get? We have to have a comprehensive plan. What we need is more openness and transparency and accountability.”
However, Labour’s mayor of London Sadiq Khan is set to call on the government to prioritise the City’s EU passporting rights at a speech at the City of London Corporation’s annual dinner tonight.
McDonnell said he was also determined to protect financial services, but would not prioritise a “bankers’ Brexit” over other industries. “It sends out messages to the rest of our economy that special deals are being cooked up. We will fight for every job in financial services sector, but it cannot be done in a chaotic way.”
David Mundell, the Scottish secretary, has appeared before a committee at Scotland’s devolved parliament, and told them there will be no “special deals” for different parts of the country under Brexit.
Questioned by MSPs on Holyrood’s Europe committee, Mundell said:
What is envisaged ... is there would be a single agreement for the whole of the United Kingdom.
That doesn’t mean that within that agreement there can’t be specific issues that would relate to Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland. There won’t be a Scotland-only agreement, or a Wales-only agreement, or a Northern Ireland-only agreement.
There will be a United Kingdom agreement, but that agreement can include differential arrangements in different parts of the United Kingdom if, as part of the negotiation process, that is seen to be the best way forward.
There are very specific issues to specific industries but there won’t be special deals, and it is absolutely wrong to characterise a suggestion that certain areas of parts of the country will get a special deal and Scotland will not.
This is a growing issue for the Brexit process. Earlier in the week, Nicola Sturgeon was pretty damning about a meeting in London involving Theresa May and the leaders of the devolved administrations, saying she was frustrated by the apparent vagueness of government plans so far.
Updated
David Owen, the former Labour foreign secretary and SDP leader, as well as a campaigner for Brexit, has warned that the UK must press ahead with negotiating trade deals or risk being “pushed over a cliff” economically.
At a speech in Switzerland Lord Owen said (quotes again via PA):
The UK has to be able to start negotiating international trade agreements before exit. This is a non-negotiable issue. So is the UK having full World Trade Organisation membership in our own right.
To fail to have these two issues put into operation and sanctioned under UK law in the European Communities Act legislation would be gross negligence.
Under any of the options for negotiating we must have these safeguards, or we otherwise face being pushed over a cliff edge after waiting for an EU decision in 2018-19 which might prove to be unacceptable.
Updated
McDonnell is – I assume – still speaking, but I still don’t have a copy of what he has said from his people.
In other news, here’s our latest takes on the GDP figures and the Nissan announcement.
Sky News, the only channel showing the John McDonnell speech live, has cut away from it to bring more reaction to the Nissan deal. You have to wonder if that was deliberate timing on the part of the government. His press people have yet to send me the text of the speech – I’ll give more extracts when I can.
My colleague, Jessica Elgot, is there.
John McDonnell speech at Institute of Directors - says Tory right pursuing a "scorched earth" policy on Brexit which risks jobs & growth pic.twitter.com/WGkruFvAP9
— Jessica Elgot (@jessicaelgot) October 27, 2016
McDonnell has also said breakfast instead of Brexit three times which is a bit distracting
— Jessica Elgot (@jessicaelgot) October 27, 2016
McDonnell: government wants to make UK 'Singapore of the north Atlantic'
McDonnell is talking about how, he says, many voters felt economically left behind, which in part prompted the Brexit vote. Labour cannot seek to “wind the clock back” to an idyllic pre-referendum past which never existed, he warns.
He then outlines what he calls a “nightmare vision” of some Conservatives who, he says, seek to turn the UK after Brexit into a low-tax, low-regulation economy.
McDonnell says the government wants to make the UK “a Singapore of the north Atlantic”, and says many Tory voters do not share such aims:
They don’t want the bankers’ Brexit any more than I do.
In contrast, he says, Labour would seek a “people’s Brexit for the many”.
Updated
PM calls Nissan announcement 'fantastic news'
To break off briefly from McDonnell, Theresa May has just released a statement on Nissan’s decision to commit to manufacturing in Sunderland:
This is fantastic news for the UK. Nissan is at the heart of this country’s strong automotive industry and so I welcome their decision to produce the Qashqai and a new model at their Sunderland plant.
It is a recognition that the government is committed to creating and supporting the right conditions for the automotive industry so it continues to grow, now and in the future.
This vote of confidence shows Britain is open for business and that we remain an outward-looking, world-leading nation.
Updated
John McDonnell has begun his speech in central London. He has outlined Labour’s insistence that the Bank of England must stay independent.
He is now explaining Labour’s response to Brexit, and begins by saying that the party has to accept the referendum:
We should not pretend that the result should be undone.
More good post-Brexit economic news on our Business Live blog – it seems that Nissan is about to confirm it will build two models, the Qashqai and X-Trail, at its plant in Sunderland. This followed worries expressed by the Japanese auto giant about the prospects for UK manufacturing after the country left the EU.
As commenters have noted immediately, this would seem to indicate that Nissan has managed to extract from the government some sort of guarantee over compensation if it ends up needing to pay tariffs post-Brexit to export vehicles to the EU.
Read the full details here:
Attorney general suggests law could be changed in wake of Ched Evans case
The attorney general, Jeremy Wright, has raised the possibility of a change to the law in the wake of the acquittal for rape of Ched Evans, in which the jury at the footballer’s re-trial heard details of the sexual history of his accuser.
The case prompted warnings that women might in the future be put off reporting sexual assaults to avoid such inquisitions in court. Jess Phillips and some other female Labour MPs, are seeking a change to the law.
Speaking about the case at attorney general’s questions in the Commons, Wright said (quotes from PA):
There is concern here and we need to accept that that concern is sensible and deal with it.
I think what we need to look at is a number of things. We need to understand more about the decision in this particular case, we need to understand whether a change in the law is appropriate, and if not whether it is sensible to look at the guidance that is given to judges about when this evidence is admissible and the guidance that judges give to juries about how that evidence should be used.
I think we need to do all of those things before we are in a position to understand what, if any, changes are needed.
Michael Gove says running for PM was "a mistake"
Michael Gove has just been interviewed on Sky News, and it’s fair to say that his interrogator, Adam Boulton, quite enjoyed giving the former justice secretary a good kicking.
Boulton asked Gove if he felt “a prize idiot” for deciding to drop his initial support for Boris Johnson to replace David Cameron so he could run himself, only to finish third in the vote of Tory MPs. Gove conceded he had made some wrong decisions:
I made a mistake. I should either have paused before supporting Boris in the way that I did or, having agreed to support Boris, I should have stuck with it. The final thing that I’ve said is that having made that decision not to support him but to run myself, I should probably have presented my case in a different way to the way that I did.
Boulton, who seemed to be having enormous fun, pressed Gove on which was his worst error, “supporting Boris, knifing Boris or thinking you were fit to be prime minister”. The reply: “Oh, I don’t know”
After Gove spoke of his happiness at having played a role in the successful leave campaign, Boulton noted that Johnson, as foreign secretary, now had a much bigger role in shaping Brexit, telling Gove: “That was another cunning plan that misfired, if you like”.
Gove finally said: “Of course, I lost, and there you go”.
As the interview ended and the cameras pulled away, Boulton could be heard exclaiming, “Well, that was fun!” I’m not sure if Gove would agree.
"You must feel a prize idiot": @michaelgove on #ToryLeadership, @BorisJohnson and #Brexit #AOP @adamboultonSKY https://t.co/v9VRMA8ykI
— Sky News (@SkyNews) October 27, 2016
My colleague Jessica Elgot has been sent another extract from John McDonnell’s upcoming speech – a section about how Labour would promise to protect the independent of the Bank of England:
We have seen Conservative backbenchers attack the governor of the Bank of England, followed up by a Conservative prime minister questioning the Bank of England’s independence.
Labour gave the Bank of England independence to stop Tory chancellors leaving monetary policy to the whims of their backbenchers. Operational independence for monetary policy, as I’ve made clear in the past, should be sacrosanct.
Labour will fight any moves by this Tory government to undermine that independence and we will resist attempts to blame the Bank of England for failed Tory economic policy.
There is likely to be discussion today as to whether the UK could have done more to assist unaccompanied child refugees in the Calais camp, which is now being dismantled by French authorities. Charities expressed alarm last night at teenagers seemingly sleeping rough in Calais, despite authorities’ stated intention to process all people in the camp before it was knocked down.
My colleague Lisa O’Carroll, who is in Calais, has sent this statement from Save the Children:
The situation for children in Calais after the demolition is the worst it’s ever been. Vulnerable children slept under bridges, outside warehouses and in the Jungle camp itself, which has become an increasingly volatile environment.
Dorothy Sang, a Save the Children aid worker in the camp, said:
Last night, we spent hours trying to negotiate a place for three young Eritrean boys – two were 13 years old and the other was 14 years old. Despite their pleading and most of the jungle being burnt to the ground, these boys were refused. They had to spend another night in the Jungle, which is now the most dangerous it has ever been for children.
It’s disappointing to see this being reported as a ‘success’ when so many vulnerable children have been left behind and so many more have run away. We may never know where they’ve gone.
Over on our Business Live blog we have full coverage of the news this morning that the economy grew by 0.5% in the three months after the Brexit vote – less than the 0.7% in the preceding quarter, but also more than the 0.3% predicted by many.
This is being seen as a sign the economy didn’t suffer much of an immediate “Brexit shock”, though of course it is still early days.
The chancellor, Philip Hammond, is sounding unsurprisingly bullish at the news, releasing this comment via a tweet.
Here's my response to today's @ONS GDP figures. pic.twitter.com/GGdt0UCFkr
— Philip Hammond (@PHammondMP) October 27, 2016
Follow the full reaction with my colleague Graeme Wearden here.
Business in the Commons has begun with questions to the attorney general (as well as the solicitor general, Robert Buckland, who kicked things off).
Before this the Speaker, John Bercow, took a brief vote on the formality of appointing outgoing Richmond MP Zac Goldsmith – or Frank Zacharias Robin Goldsmith, to use his full name, as Bercow did – as Steward and Bailiff of the Chiltern Hundreds, one of the interim courtesy titles handed to MPs who resign, and moving the writ for the by-election, expected to happen on 1 December.
Goldsmith, the Conservative MP who stepped down over the plans for a new runway at Heathrow airport, will re-fight the seat as an independent. Liberal Democrats in the west London seat hope to re-take the constituency, in part by seeking to make the by-election a plebiscite on Brexit.
My colleague Alexandra Topping has more on this.
Updated
Among those speaking last night at the annual awards ceremony for the LGBT online newspaper PinkNews was David Mundell, the Scottish secretary, who publicly announced in January that he was gay. Here’s some of what he said, quotes courtesy of PA:
While coming out earlier this year was one of the most difficult things I have done in my life, it’s also proved to be among the best.
There is no template for it and everybody must do what is right for them and their personal circumstances, but I have no regrets.
I said at the time that I did it for myself and it really has made a difference to personal happiness by allowing me to be completely the person I am. However, I am acutely aware that many people don’t have the support I’ve had, particularly from their families.
That’s why it’s so important we continue to speak out to end prejudice and campaign until equality for everybody in the LGBT community is without question.
The awards saw David Cameron named LGBT Ally of the Year for his work on gay marriage, with Theresa May sending a video message saying that there is still “too much” hatred and discrimination against LGBT people.
Good morning. It looks like the political pace might turn down a notch today following a frantic week of airports and Brexit news.
The main event of the morning will be John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, making a speech to warn that the terms of departure from the EU should not be tilted in favour of financial institutions at the expense of manufacturers and small business – or in his catchy phrase, it shouldn’t be a “bankers’ Brexit”.
McDonnell will be speaking around 11am. My colleague, Jessica Elgot, will be there, and has written a preview.
It’s Peter Walker at the controls here, I should mention, in place of Andrew, who returns next week.
Otherwise, the Commons is sitting, but the schedule doesn’t immediately throw up any major set piece events. Meanwhile the home secretary, Amber Rudd, is at the Vatican for talks about modern slavery.
Meanwhile Theresa May still faces pressure, both here and overseas, about her private warnings to Goldman Sachs about the economic perils of Brexit, as revealed in the Guardian. This is our latest story.
Do get in touch with your thoughts, either below the line or on Twitter – I’m at @peterwalker99. I’ll try to read comments as I can, but if you’re addressing anything to me directly it can be easier to put my name in there somewhere.
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