Get all your news in one place.
100's of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Andrew Sparrow

Davis now says he 'expects and intends' Commons Brexit vote before UK leaves – as it happened

Afternoon summary, including highlights from Sir Ivan Rogers' evidence on Brexit

  • David Davis, the Brexit secretary, has sought to assure MPs they will get a vote on the Brexit deal, only hours after raising the possibility that the long-promised Commons vote may take place after Brexit has occurred. Giving evidence to the Commons Brexit committee, he said the vote would have to take place after 29 March 2019 if the Brexit talks went to the wire. After Theresa May played down this prospect at PMQs, Davis put out a statement saying that ministers “expect and intend” the vote to take place before Brexit occurs. But he did not give an absolute commitment that this would be the case. (See 3.56pm.)
  • Sir Ivan Rogers, Britain’s former ambassador to the EU, has said that there is no chance of the UK negotiating a trade deal with the EU before Brexit takes place. Davis told the Brexit committee this morning that a deal could be wrapped up within 12 months. (See 11.46am.) Rogers said this was wrong. Giving evidence to the Commons Treasury committee he said:

What we are talking about going into the new year are not trade talks. They are talks about the future partnership, and the framework for that future partnership, and that is what is specified in article 50. Those are not trade talks ...

The point about trade deals is that they are inordinately complex, legal, lengthy documents. They often run to thousands of pages. There is no way that a UK-EU trade deal as comprehensive as the one I think you’ll want to strike will be done in under a couple of thousand pages. Those couple of thousand pages are not going to be legally baked and done by October 2018. No chance. And, as I say, legally they are under a different article of the treaty.

  • Rogers said EU leaders think the UK has an unrealistic view of the sort of trade deal it will be able to achieve. When they hear Theresa May talk about a “bespoke” deal, they think she wants to keep the advantages of being in the single market, without having to accept free movement, he said. (See 2.37pm.) He also said the UK seemed to be heading for a free trade deal loosely based on Canada’s. In London they refer to this as “Canada +++”, he said.

If you talk to people I know well in Brussels and other capitals about Canada +++, they regard this as British fantasy land and they say that’s not on offer.

  • Rogers said Theresa May’s decision to trigger the countdown to Brexit opened Britain up to being “screwed” in the negotiations with Brussels. He told the committee:

I did say last autumn I would not agree unequivocally to invoke article 50 unless you know how article 50 is going to work because the moment you invoke article 50, the 27 dictate the rules of the game and they will set up the rules of the game in the way that most suits them.

My advice as a European negotiator was that that was a moment of key leverage and if you wanted to avoid being screwed on the negotiations in terms of the sequencing you had to negotiate with the key European leaders and the key people at the top of the institutions and say ‘I will invoke article 50 but only under circumstances where I know exactly how it is going to operate.’

He also said his advice had been “heavily opposed” by “various people in London”.

Sir Ivan Rogers.
Sir Ivan Rogers. Photograph: Parliament TV
  • Dominic Grieve, the Conservative former attorney general, has said that Britain may have to temporarily extend its EU membership if a Brexit deal has not been ratified by both sides at the planned exit date of March 2019. Giving evidence to the Commons procedure committee, he said:

What will happen [if talks are not concluded by the deadline] is that there will be a necessary extension - short extension - of time on both sides for this matter to be resolved. I can see that with the wording of article 50, in the way it is, one interpretation would be: ‘Well, the two years, and the guillotine comes down’. I just don’t think this has any bearing on the practical reality of the way in which this negotiation will be carried out at all.

If we are at the point where our partners in the EU are saying: ‘Terribly sorry, we can’t extend it by one second, millisecond’, then all I can say is, at that stage they’d probably want to get rid of us without any deal at all.

  • The head of HM Revenue and Customs has said the tax authorities would need up to £450m in extra funding and up to 5,000 extra staff to deal with the impact of Britain leaving the European Union without a deal. (See 7.13pm.)

That’s all from me for today - and for this week.

Thanks for the comments.

Updated

Fallon says criticising Saudia Arabia puts British arms sales at risk

Defence secretary Sir Michael Fallon has said MPs criticising Saudi Arabia in Parliament is “not helpful” to the government’s efforts to secure a new deal to sell Typhoon jets to the Gulf State.

Speaking at the defence select committee, Fallon suggested that criticising Saudi Arabia, which has attracted international condemnation for its devastating offensive in Yemen, was putting a follow-on deal to sell British-made Eurofighter Typhoons, known as “batch two”, in jeopardy. He said:

I have to repeat sadly to this committee that other criticism of Saudi Arabia in this parliament is not helpful and I’ll leave it there but we need to do everything possible to encourage Saudi Arabia towards batch two, I believe they will commit to batch two and and we need to work on the timing.

Fallon said the department had been working “extremely hard” to secure a deal.

I travelled to Saudi Arabia back in September and discussed progress on the deal with my opposite number the Crown Prince and we continue to press for signature and at least a statement of intent as we had with Qatar.


Fallon was also asked about the long-term viability of BAE’s Warton and Samlesbury sites, two of the UK’s three aircraft manufacturing sites, where 750 staff were recently made redundant. He said:

I’m concerned about the job losses, anybody would be concerned about the job losses. That’s why we’ve been in touch with the company and talk to them and make sure they have all the assistances they need in the export campaigns that I have described.

HMRC will need up to £450m and up to 5,000 extra staff if UK leaves EU with no deal, MPs told

The tax authorities will need up to £450m in extra funding and up to 5,000 extra staff to deal with the impact of Britain leaving the European Union without a deal, MPs have been warned.

Jon Thompson, the senior civil servant in HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC), also told the public accounts committee that he could not guarantee that a new customs system would be ready for Brexit in March 2019.

At a public accounts committee meeting, Thompson said the tax authority has already been given £78m from the £250m fund set aside by the government this year to plan for the possibility of the UK crashing out of the EU.

Most of that is being spent on dealing with customs but cash has also been used to plan for the impact no deal would have on indirect taxes, the welfare state and data sharing, MPs were told.

Thompson said the funding was enough for now but warned he was likely to ask for “significantly more” next year.

He said an extra 3,000-5,000 extra staff would need to be recruited to cope with a no deal outcome. He told the committee:

It will be several hundred million pounds if we are implementing the option of the United Kingdom leaving the European Union with no ongoing special relationship in April 2019.

That is the most extreme version, I think, of leaving the European Union.

In that scenario you are looking at an estimate of between £300-450m.

The committee was told that a new customs system, called CDS, which has been developed by HMRC for several years will be ready for implementation by January 2019 - just two months before Brexit.

Labour’s Shabana Mahmood was among several MPs who questioned if this gave the government enough leeway. “If this goes wrong it will be catastrophic for Britain’s international reputation,” she said.

Thompson said he could not guarantee that a new customs system would be delivered on time, but that he hoped it would be. He said:

The programme has met all of the milestones that it was meant to have done. We can be reasonably confident but we need to be transparent with you.

There are four risks to this programme. Anyone of those four risks could either delay the project or ultimate worst case scenario mean that [the system] wouldn’t be ready.

It is currently going well but I will never give you any guarantee that an IT system will work.

The Rogers hearing has now finished.

I’ll post a summary soon.

In the comments ianmckenzie points out a line from the Rogers evidence that I’ve missed, and makes a rather good point.

User avatar for ianamckenzie

Good to see Sir Ivan throw the Maybot's 'Venezuela' jibes at Labour right back in her face (from BBC coverage, sorry Andrew!):

"What's the worst that could happen?" ponders Sir Ivan, when considering the prospect of no deal being agreed with the EU by 30 March 2019.

"We become a third country, in the awful jargon of Brussels, so we have no more rights than Venezuala or Yemen in the EU market... because we've got no preferential treatment, we've got no legal agreement."

So Is it in reality the Tories who are driving the UK towards 'Venezuela-style economic armageddon' (their words not mine).

Grieve says government could face legal challenge if it implements Brexit before MPs have voted

In the Commons procedure committee Dominic Grieve, the Conservative former attorney general, said that if the government tried to take the UK out of the EU before the Commons voted on it there could be a legal challenge. He floated the idea of Brexit being temporarily postponed to allow both sides to ratify the deal. These are from the BBC’s Esther Webber.

Fallon says criticising Saudia Arabia puts British arms sales at risk

Turning away from Brexit for a moment, Sir Michael Fallon, the defence secretary, has also been giving evidence to a committee this afternoon. As the Times’ Deborah Haynes reports, Fallon said that MPs who criticised Saudi Arabia in parliament were putting arms sales at risk.

At the Commons procedure committee Sir Keir Starmer, the shadow Brexit secretary, said he did not know why David Davis said what he said this morning about the Brexit deal possibly going through at the last minute. (See 11.46am.) These are from the BBC’s Esther Webber.

Actually, Davis used the expression “nanosecond” in a different context - talking about how soon after Brexit a new trade deal might come into force. (See 9.32am.)

The Hugo Dixon Twitter thread I posted at 1.32pm explains in more detail the case Starmer is making.

Labour wins vote on social care after Tories abstain

This is the third day devoted to opposition motions since the election. And, again, the Tories have refused to vote. The Labour motion on social care has gone through on the nod.

This is what it says.

That this House notes the Conservative party’s manifesto commitment to a funding proposal for social care which would have no cap on care costs and would include the value of homes in the means test for care at home; further notes that this proposal would leave people with a maximum of only £100,000 of assets; calls on the government to confirm its intention not to proceed with this commitment; and further calls on the government to remove the threat to withdraw social care funding from, and stop fines on, local authorities for delayed transfers of care and to commit to the extra funding needed to close the social care funding gap for 2017 and the remaining years of the 2017 parliament.

In her speech Jackie Doyle-Price, the care minister, said the government did not accept it imposes “fines” on councils for delayed transfers of care. She said this referred to measures that ensure public money gets spent properly. She told MPs:

It is right that there should be consequences for those who fail to improve. If their performance does not improve, government may direct spending - it is not a fine - we will direct spending for the poorest performers, and we will reserve the right to review allocations in the future.

Here is Labour whips, an official account, commenting on the result.

Davis says he 'expects and intends' Commons Brexit vote to take place before UK leaves EU

The Brexit department has put out a statement attempting to clarify the position on parliament getting a vote on the final Brexit deal. A spokesperson for David Davis has just put out a statement saying:

We are working to reach an agreement on the final deal in good time before we leave the EU in March 2019. Once the deal is agreed we will meet our long-standing commitment to a vote in both Houses and we expect and intend this to be before the vote in the European parliament and therefore before we leave.

This morning the secretary of state was asked about hypothetical scenarios. Michel Barnier has said he hopes to get the deal agreed by October 2018 and that is our aim as well.

  • Brexit department says they “expect and intend” the Commons Brexit vote to take place before the UK leaves the EU.

This is similar to the line taken by Theresa May at PMQs (see 12.40pm) when asked about what David Davis said this morning (see 11.46am).

But this is not a cast-iron guarantee, and hence it is unlikely to fully quash concerns that the process could result in the Commons vote taking place after Brexit takes place.

Updated

Primary legislation would be needed in parliament to lift a £72,500 cap on social care costs that is due to come into effect in four years, Jackie Doyle-Price, the care minister, has told MPs. As the Press Association reports, the cap on an individual’s care costs was brought in following the recommendations of the Dilnot commission in 2011. That cap had already been put into an act of parliament, but the overnment has since announced a fresh consultation on the future system of social care.

Speaking in a debate on Labour motion on social care, Doyle-Price said the £72,500 cap would come into force in 2021/22 unless that gets changed through primary legislation.

At the election the Tories proposed getting people to pay for the costs of their care until they had no more than £100,000 of assets left, rather than an upper cap on the amount they would have to pay. Today’s Labour motion calls on the government to confirm that the policy has been dropped.

Doyle-Price said the government is going to hold a consultation on the future social care model would “inform a well-informed debate that can establish consensus”. She told MPs:

In that sense, we’ll consider a wide variety of options. And not just about funding, but also about lifestyle solutions and other issues.

Updated

Rogers says a trade deal will run to around 2,000 pages. He says there is no way that is going to be done by October 2018.

Rogers says the talks that may start next year between the UK and the EU will not be trade talks. He says he can understand why the press describe them as such, because they will reach into trade, but they will be talks on a future partnership. The trade talks proper cannot start until the UK has left, he says.

He says the British want what they describe as “Canada +++”. He says some in the EU see this as a fantasy.

Rogers says a no deal situation would create a huge problem for the Irish economy.

Rogers is speculating about what could led to no deal.

First, if at the December council, and the EU demanded money which the UK would not pay, at that point talks might break down.

The other scenario would see the UK and the EU trundling along in 2018, making not much progress, like this year. You could get towards the end and flip into a no deal scenario, where the EU would make their own plans. They would not consult the UK. They would decide what they needed and what they did not.

There is no guarantee that both sides will come together.

It may be so bloody by then that both sides are looking to knock chunks out of each other and start a trade war. Who knows?

Rogers says he does not think the UK and the EU would refuse to have a deal, because the consequences of no deal would be so dire.

For example, look at aviation. He says British airlines would lose key operating rights. He says the UK would fall out of 50 aviation agreements. It would need to negotiate new agreements.

He says he does not think it would be possible to revive aviation agreements with individual member states.

The Commons procedure committee is taking Brexit-related evidence too. It is investigating how parliament can scrutinise the use of the Henry VIII powers being introduced by the EU withdrawal bill. Last week, as the Guardian reported, the Brexit minister Steve Baker said told the committee the government was concerned that efforts to beef up parliamentary scrutiny of these powers could slow down Brexit. As we reported at the time:

Speaking to MPs on the cross-party procedure committee on Wednesday, the DexEU minister Steve Baker said the government would consider amendments, including the idea of a so-called “sifting committee” to sort through changes made under the Henry VII powers.

But he said the department could not introduce new layers of scrutiny if it would threaten the government’s ability to prepare for Brexit day in March 2019.

“The crux of the matter is time,” he said. “It is incumbent on us to think extremely carefully about the pros and cons of any amendments.” He said parliament had expressed a “strong view” about the idea of a sifting committee.

Sir Keir Starmer, the shadow Brexit secretary, is giving evidence to the procedure committee this afternoon. Labour is backing plans to amend the bill to ensure that some of these Henry VIII powers can only be exercised following a vote in the Commons. He said he was not convinced by Baker’s argument about scrutiny of this kind taking up too much time. This is from the BBC’s Esther Webber.

Rogers says a “no deal” Brexit would not actually mean no deal.

Instead, there would be a series of mini deals covering different sectors of the economy.

So, he says, the people talking about no deal are not actually talking about no deal. No one would want to jump into the void of having no deal at all.

He says the press coverage of this option has been flawed. People do not ask what will happen on the other side of the channel if there is no deal. Do other EU countries have an incentive to cooperate with us or not?

He says any contingency plan must be brutally tested against what the other side would do.

Rogers says he strongly advised the government last autumn not to rush into triggering article 50. This advice was heavily resisted by people in government, he said, for political reasons he understands. He said he thought if the UK triggered article 50 too early, it would get “screwed” on sequencing.

Back at the Treasury committee Rogers told MPs that the US would not agree a trade deal with the UK without a big agricultural component. He said Congress cares more about agriculture than anything else.

He also said that his understanding was that the Irish were unhappy about the UK’s plans for post-Brexit border controls at the border with Northern Ireland. The Irish thought the British were proposing “wheezes”, he said. And the Irish took the view that this was not a problem that could be fixed by wheezes.

The Commons public accounts committee is also taking evidence on Brexit. They are focusing on customs, and their main witness is Jon Thompson, chief executive of HM Revenue and Customs.

Thompson has told the committee that preparing for a “no deal” Brexit could cost them £400m, and require the recruitment of up to 5,000 extra staff.

Rogers says he expects EU leaders to ask the UK to contribute to what he calls the RAL - the reste a liquider, or overhang commitments in the EU budget. He says they will argue the UK’s share amounts to €30bn.

But the government will argue that these are long-term commitments for which the UK is not responsible, he says.

Here is the Guardian story about Theresa May telling MPs at PMQs that the government is scrapping plans to cap housing benefit for social housing and supported accommodation.

Rogers says when he was at Brussels, he was always worried the EU would set up a sequencing process where the EU would put a large financial demand on the table, and then refuse to move until the UK agrees to it.

That is one reason he thought the UK should delay triggering article 50, he says.

Rogers says he is not surprised that the UK and the EU did not achieve a breakthrough in October. He has been saying that to all corporates he has been speaking to.

He says the EU27 will draft proposals on transition and on the end state. But he says he thinks they will only put that on the table if the UK goes further on money.

In the EU there is an assumption that people can “jump together”. That is the jargon; the UK would move on money, and the EU would move on transition and on the end state.

There won’t be an agreement, because the UK will have to look at it. For example, they might insist on common policies and agriculture.

Rogers says he is not surprised by the fact that the talks have gone through a difficult phase. He predicted this.

The mood improved after the Florence speech, he says.

But he says he thinks EU leaders are frustrated by the UK not being specific about what it wants.

And he says, in European capitals, they hear references to a “bespoke” deal as the UK wanting to keep three of the four EU freedoms of movement (good, services and capital) but not the fourth (workers).

He says Europeans see a “radical difference” between the in single market and having a free trade area. He says the Europeans think Britain cannot expect to have things carry on as now.

Ivan Rogers says he thinks the EU will conclude that the maximum the UK will want is a Canada-style free trade agreement.

The EU will conclude that the UK wants a “DCFTA” - a deep and comprehensive free trade agreement, he says.

Ivan Rogers gives evidence to Commons Treasury committee

Sir Ivan Rogers, the former British ambassador to the EU, has just started giving evidence to the Commons Treasury committee on Brexit.

Rogers resigned from his post in January, and marked his departure by sending an email to staff containing a thinly-veiled attack on Number 10’s handling of Brexit policy. He decided to go after repeatedly clashing with Theresa May’s then co chiefs of staff, Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill. One of the issues on which they reportedly disagreed was over when to trigger article 50. Rogers apparently wanted to delay, but May ignored him and decided to trigger it by March this year, partly so she had an announcement to make at the 2016 Conservative party conference.

Rogers gave evidence to two committees earlier this year. Of the many select committee hearings devoted to Brexit in 2017, they were two of the most interesting.

Here is his evidence to the Commons European scrutiny committee in February.

And here is a summary of his evidence to the Brexit committee three weeks later.

Updated

Today’s suggestion by David Davis, the Brexit secretary, that MPs should prime themselves on the opaque workings of the EU by reading former Greek finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis’ Adults in the Room (see 9.43am) has been met with derision in Greece.

Varoufakis may have his admirers abroad but in Athens he remains a highly controversial figure. Increasingly Greeks have come to attribute the harshness of the austerity imposed on the debt-stricken country as part of its latest bailout programme, to his bungled negotiating tactics. In a far cry from the high praise delivered by Davis, compatriots accuse Varoufakis of benefiting at their expense on the great Greek crisis lecture circuit that he now dominates.

In what was subsequently billed as one of its most widely read letters ever, one exasperated Athenian, Steven C Capsakis, wrote a few months back in the pages of the FT:

Those of us who had to live through Mr Varoufakis’ so called negotiation with Greece’s creditors in 2015 (in reality a six-month-long “game of chicken”), and still have to live with the attendant damage it caused the Greek economy (estimated by the Bank of Greece to be in excess of €85bn, or 46% of gross domestic product) are entitled to feel that Martin Wolf and Wolfgang Munchau [Financial Times columnists] are adding insult to injury by sustaining his long-standing promotion campaign, of which his six-month stewardship of the Greek economy is but a single (expensive) chapter.

But Varoufakis also has his admirers with many agreeing that Greece has been consigned to a debt-deflationary death spiral through ruthless pursuit of self-defeating austerity.

Yanis Varoufakis
Yanis Varoufakis Photograph: Alkis Konstantinidis/REUTERS

Updated

Nicola Sturgeon is currently undergoing her biannual grilling by the convenors of all Holyrood’s committees on her government’s record. Discussing Brexit, Sturgeon accused Westminster of failing to share key information with devolved administrations, a theme that has dogged discussions between Scottish – and Welsh – representatives and the UK government since the start of the process.

She referred to David Davis’s appearance at the Brexit select committee earlier this morning, during which he confirmed to the SNP’s Joanna Cherry that he would share an impact assessment of Brexit on the Scottish economy with the Scottish government.(Davis actually thought it already had been shared, and had to be prompted by Cherry that this was not the case.)

Sturgeon pressed Davis to make the information public:

[David Davis was] apparently saying it would not be in the national interest to publish these. Well, it might not be in the interest of the Westminster government to publish these, it’s certainly in the national interest to publish them.

There is a lack of willingness to share information and to allow the Scottish government or indeed the other devolved administrations to influence this work and I don’t think that is acceptable either from the point of view of respect for devolution or in the interests of getting the best possible outcomes for these discussions.

At the justice committee this morning David Lidington, the justice secretary, said criminals should only be sent to prison as a “last resort”. He said he wanted to see the prison population come down but declined to set an “arbitrary” target. He told MPs:

I want to see the numbers come down but I think it would be wrong to set an arbitrary figure for that.

Hugo Dixon, who set up the pro-EU InFacts, has written an interesting Twitter thread about David Davis’s comments about a last-minute Brexit deal. It starts here.

PMQs - Verdict from the Twitter commentariat

This is what political journalists and commentators are saying about PMQs on Twitter.

Jeremy Corbyn is deemed the winner.

From the New Statesman’s George Eaton

From Sky’s Adam Boulton

From the Daily Mirror’s Ben Glaze

From HuffPost’s Paul Waugh

From the Guardian’s Gaby Hinsliff

From the Spectator’s Isabel Hardman

From Sky’s Tamara Cohen

Updated

At PMQs Jeremy Corbyn quoted what Angela Burns, a Conservative member of the Welsh assembly, has said about universal credit. Burns set out her views in an email accidentally sent to all Conservative AMs (assembly members). As ITV reports she said:

I have to say to you all that I think this position is indefensible and if I’m challenged I will say so. For the life of me I cannot understand why a 6 or 4 week gap is deemed acceptable. It should be a seamless transition and it’s not beyond the wit of man to make it so. I’m all for UC and I agree the benefits system should be overhauled and people paid appropriately but this cavalier attitude that the poorest can muddle through is callous at best and downright cruel at worst. I’m ashamed of my government.

Angela Burns.
Angela Burns. Photograph: Richard Gardner / Rex Features

As usual, I missed the question from the SNP leader at Westminster, Ian Blackford, because it was writing up the snap verdict. According to PoliticsHome, Blackford asked May if she agreed that migration helped economic growth. She gave qualified agreement. Then he asked about the Felbers, an American couple being deported from Scotland. He said:

They contribute to their community and local economy, yet they will be deported because of a retrospective change in Home Office rules. Will the prime minister meet with me to discuss this case and the systemic problems with UK migration?

May said she did not accept there were systemic problems with UK migration.

After PMQs Blackford issued this statement about the issue.

The Felbers have done nothing wrong. They have, at all times sought to comply with the rules, but the UK government changed the rules, during their qualification period, without notice.

I have asked to meet with the prime minister to discuss this case, and the systemic problems with UK immigration policy which means people who contribute to our economy and communities are being forced to leave. This has been an incredibly stressful and heartbreaking situation for the couple.

It is unacceptable that the Felbers, like the Zielsdorff family, who ran the local shop in the tiny village of Laggan before them, are to be ripped from the Highlands. The Tories disgraceful “one size fits all” policy doesn’t fit Scotland and has no bearing on the realities of everyday life in rural areas.

The SNP has long campaigned against damaging Tory immigration policy, and we will continue to make the case that immigration policy should be devolved to the Scottish government.

Ian Blackford.
Ian Blackford. Photograph: PA

Number 10 does not seem happy with David Davis, the Sun’s Tom Newton Dunn reports.

Bercow hints he would allow MPs to vote on amendment saying Brexit deal vote should take place before March 2019

PMQs is over. Raising a point of order, Labour’s Chuka Umunna says the government gave a clear commitment when the article 50 bill was going through parliament that MPs would get a meaningful vote on the Brexit deal. This morning David Davis told MPs that that vote might take place after March 2019. Umunna says the Commons cannot “take back control” unless it gets that vote. At best there is a contradiction here, he says. At worse, a false impression has been given.

Christopher Chope, a Conservative, says he was at the committee hearing. He claims Umunna misunderstood what was said at the committee. Davis was making the point that there could not be a vote on an agreement before 29 March 2019 if there was no agreement before 29 March 2019.

John Bercow, the speaker, says Umunna wants a vote on Brexit before it happens. That is a matter for political debate. He says Umunna is presumably keen to get what he wants. There will be a great many debates on this matter, he says. He says Umunna and others will make the same point repeatedly. Umunna will be able to “press his case”, he says.

Labour’s Pat McFadden says he was at the committee too. He listened to what Davis said. He says Davis’s comments would make a “material and significant difference” to the Commons’ ability to have a say on Brexit. What can the Commons do to make sure it has meaningful imput into this?

Labour’s Seema Malhotra says it was her question at the committee. Given the constitutional significance of this, shouldn’t there be a ministerial statement?

The DUP’s Sammy Wilson says he was at the committee too. He did not hear Davis say what people think he said, he says.

Bercow says a transcript of the session will be published.

He says, if there has been a material change in policy, there should be a ministerial statement. MPs know what they can do if that does not get offered, he says.

He says legislation will come back to the House. A large number of amendments have been tabled to the bill. The deputy speaker will select amendments to be put to a vote, and at report stage he, as speaker, gets to select amendment. He says he always wants to see the fullest possible debate.

  • Bercow hints that he would allow MPs to vote on an amendment to the EU withdrawal bill saying the vote on the Brexit deal should take place before Brexit.

The DUP’s Nigel Dodds asks May if she will continue to work with the DUP and Bombardier management to protect jobs at the factory.

May says she will continue to try to protect those jobs.

The Conservative MP Bob Blackman says he is pleased the government has backed his Homelessness Reduction Act. Will the government consider a scheme to make it easier for people to rent?

May says the Treasury will be looking at Blackman’s proposal.

May says she hopes Labour MPs will continue to promote the defence industry.

May says SNP MPs come to London and complain about the Scottish parliament’s powers. It is time they used those powers to help people in Scotland, she says.

May says she is confident Commons Brexit vote will take place before UK leaves EU

A few minutes ago the Labour MP Stephen Kinnock asked May about David Davis’s revelation this morning that the Commons vote on the Brexit deal may come after the UK leaves the EU.

In response, May said she was confident that the vote would happen before Brexit. She told MPs:

The timetable does give time until March 2019 but I’m confident, because it is in the interests of both sides there will be ratification by other parliaments, that we will be able to have this agreement and that negotiation in time for this parliament to have a vote we can listen to.

The SNP’s Tommy Sheppard says the Scottish parliament voted to ban fracking yesterday. Why won’t the UK government do the same?

May says she disagree. Shale gas can be a valuable source of energy, she says.

Nicky Morgan, a Conservative, asks May about Jared O’Hara.

May says she wants to see young women seeing this House as a place they want to come to. That is why she is in politics. The Tories have more women MPs than ever before.

All MPs should pay due care and attention to the way they refer to people, and should respect women, she says.

Thelma Walker, the Labour MP, asks about a hospital issue in Colne Valley.

May says the proposed changes have been referred to the health secretary.

Steve Double, a Tory, asks about the Bloodhound attempt on the world land speed record.

May wishes them well. She says the project shows the UK is a world leader.

Labour’s Kevan Jones says parts of the mental health system are in crisis. In his constituency some families wait two years for an autism diagnosis. Is that acceptable??

May says the health secretary will look into this. People should not have to wait that long, she says. NICE have published guidance saying assessments should start within three months.

PMQs - Snap verdict

PMQs - Snap verdict: “Punch the bruise”, as the saying goes, and after a very good PMQs last week Corbyn came back to the subject of universal credit (his main theme two weeks ago, and a topic that gave Labour a symbolic victory in the opposition day debate a week ago today). He had the edge on May again today, not least because she could not answer his strong opening question about why she was ignoring the will of the Commons. (It would have been nice to hear him make the point that Brexit was supposed to be about restoring the sovereignty of parliament, but Corbyn seems averse to bringing up Brexit at PMQs, which may not be noble, but probably makes tactical sense.) Corbyn may have been on much the same form as last week, but May was much improved. Instead of defaulting immediately to the “strong economy” sloganising (which she saved up to the end), she engaged with the issue of universal credit, and defended her policy with newish statistics on the slow pace of the UC rollout. She was also forceful on the issue of tax credits, at one point arguing that the Gordon Brown initiative created exactly the problems that Corbyn was criticising her for (allowing the benefit system to subsidise low-paying employers). But, as ever, trying to hold Corbyn responsible for the failings of New Labour economics is inevitably a relatively feeble debating point.

Corbyn says May did not say anything about people in the private rented sector being evicted. The welfare state was not designed to compensate for underpaying firms and overcharging landlords. Will the budget put the onus back on employers to pay a decent wage.

May says of course the government wants to see well-paid jobs. She says subsidising employers on low wages was exactly what Labour’s tax credits did.

Corbyn says low pay is endemic. That is why Labour backs a real living wage. The government does not know whether it is coming or going. It backs universal credit, but won’t vote for it. The communities secretary backs £50bn on housing, but the chancellor won’t pay for it. This government is weak and divided, he says. And it is unable to take essential decisions necessary for the good of this country.

May says of course she wants to see people earn higher wages. The way to do that is to build a stronger economy. You don’t do that by losing control of the public finances. And you don’t do that by voting against progress in the Brexit negotiations, or by planning for capital flight and a run on the pound.

Corbyn says under Labour 1m people were taken out of poverty. Maybe May could listen to Iain Duncan Smith. He said he did not agree with the extra waiting days added to universal credit.

On the subject of Labour, May says when Labour introduced tax credits, she had people in her surgery complaining about being landed with bills for tax credits they had to pay back.

Corbyn says tax credits lifted people out of poverty. Is it right that councils are having to spend their money preventing people being made homeless as a result of UC.

May says Labour introduced tax credits and then clawed money back from people working hard. She says the number of people on UC in arrears has fallen by a third. No one can be evicted from social housing over short term rent arrears. This is about a system that does not trap people in a life on benefits.

Jeremy Corbyn asks if May will respect the will of the House in relation to the vote on universal credit last week.

May says she wants to update MPs. Some 8% of people are on UC. That will go up to 10%. The full rollout will take until 2022. Four out of five people are satisfied or very satisfied with the service they get.

Corbyn says, if only 8% of the rollout has taken place and 20% of people are dissatisfied, that is a good reason for pausing. Only one Tory MP voted with Labour last week. A Conservative member of the Welsh assmbly said it was “callous at best” and that she was ashamed of her government.

May says the government has been making changes. But why was it introduced. Under Labour the low-paid paid tax, and then had it paid back in benefits. The number of people in workless households doubled. Under the Tories the low paid have had a tax cut and a pay rise.

May says the government will publish a response to a consultation on supported housing on Tuesday 31 October. The housing cap not will be applied to supported housing, or to the wider social rented sector.

  • May announces cap on housing benefit will not apply to supported housing.

Updated

Labour’s Afzal Khan asks why May won’t match Labour’s commitment to put an extra £8bn into social care.

May says she recognises the problems here. The government has put more money in. In the medium term it wants to promote best practice, and in the long term it wants reform. It will publish a full and open consultation.

Theresa May gets cheered as she starts.

She wishes all the home nation teams luck in the rugby league world championships.

There is a history of leaders suspending embarrassing MPs just before PMQs, to head off embarrassing questions. Today Labour’s Jared O’Mara has had the pre-PMQs shove.

PMQs

PMQs is about to start.

Here is some reaction to what David Davis said about parliament possibly not getting a vote on the Brexit deal until after the UK has left the EU. (See 11.46am.)

From Tom Brake, the Lib Dem Brexit spokesman

This is a shameful attempt to force through an extreme Brexit and ride roughshod over our parliamentary democracy.

It demonstrates the total contempt with which the government holds parliament.

David Davis’ reputation as a champion of parliamentary sovereignty now lies in tatters.

Not only should parliament have a vote on the final deal, the British people should too - with the option to reject it and stay in the EU.

What started with democracy cannot end with a stitch-up between Brussels and Whitehall.

From the Labour MP Pat McFadden, a member of the committee and a supporter of Open Britain, the group pushing for a soft Brexit.

The secretary of state’s statement that Parliament may not get a vote on the final deal until after March 2019 cuts the feet from under any meaningful parliamentary role in this process. Leavers campaigned for Brexit in the name of parliamentary sovereignty and are now terrified of parliament.

The government wants a blank cheque for whatever Brexit deal it manages to reach with no meaningful way for MPs to represent the interests of the public because the deal – or even no deal – will be decided before parliament gets a chance to express its view. This isn’t a meaningful say. It’s an after-the-fact rubber stamp.

David Davis's evidence to Brexit committee - Summary

Here are the main points from David Davis’s evidence to the Commons Brexit committee.

  • Davis, the Brexit secretary, said that parliament might not get to vote on Brexit deal until after the UK has left the EU. He said that he expected there to be a withdrawal agreement and a new trade agreement but that the two of them might be finalised at the same time, at the end of March 2019. There was a history of EU negotiations being settled “at the 59th minute of the 11th hour”, he said.

It’s no secret that the way the union makes its decision tends to be at the 59th minute of the 11th hour of the 11th day and so on, and that is precisely what I would expect to happen ...

If there is a time limit on a negotiation the union stops the clock, it assumes that it’s still at 11:59 until it is concluded, sometimes over the course of 24, 36, 72 hours thereafter and that’s what I imagine it will be.

And it will be a lot of pressure, very high stress, very exciting for everybody watching.

When Labour’s Seema Malhotra asked if this meant that the parliamentary vote on the deal could come after Brexit has taken place, Davis replied:

It could be, yeah. It depends when it concludes.

Malhotra then asked for clarification. So the vote could be after March 2019? Davis replied:

It could be ... It can’t come before we have the deal.

Davis also said that he would not mind if the trade deal, which will have to be ratified EU national parliaments, gets ratified after Brexit during the transition. He said:

My concern is that we get the deal with the council, with the commission by the 29th. I would not be mortified if the ratification process ran into the implementation period.

  • Davis said that he expected the “form of the implementation period” to be agreed before the end of March next year. But it would probably not happen before the end of 2017 because the EU summit, where EU leaders may agree to open talks on a transition, takes place just before Christmas, he said. But he also said Theresa May was right to tell MPs on Monday that the transition deal would only be finalised as part of the overall, final agreement.
  • He said there was a danger of the EU trying to impose ‘sudden, last-minute’ conditions in Brexit talks. (See 9.43am.)
  • He said that EU would require a higher price if the UK wanted the transition to last longer than two years. (See 9.46am.)
  • He accepted that that the economic benefits of a trade deal with the EU could outweigh the cost of extra payments equivalent to roughly 1% of GDP. (See 11.01am.)

Labour MP Jared O'Mara suspended from whip over alleged verbal abuse

The Press Association has just snapped this.

Sheffield Hallam MP Jared O’Mara has had the whip suspended while an investigation into his remarks is carried out, Labour said.

Hilary Benn is wrapping up.

He says what David Davis said about the possibility of the parliamentary vote coming after Brexit was significant.

But he says Davis has also provided some reassurance to firms worried that they might have to wait until next autumn to learn about the transition.

And that’s it. The hearing is over.

I will post a summary soon.

Christopher Chope, a Conservative, says Michel Barnier is giving evidence to the committee in a fortnight. What questions should they ask?

Davis says they should asks what “sufficient progress” means. And they should ask why he thinks negotiating a trade deal will take so long.

He says the European commission does like to use time as a pressure point.

He says that delaying could have a 3 to 4% impact on the economies of countries like Holland and Belgium. MPs should ask what Holland and Belgium say about that.

Hilary Benn goes next.

Q: You says there will be no physical infrastructure at the border with Ireland. How can that be if there is no deal.

Davis says the government set out plans in the paper it published earlier this year.

Q: Do you think the Republic and the EU27 think it possible to have no border in the event of there being no deal.

Davis says he thinks the Irish government takes that view, although it is a new government.

He says the European commission is sceptical.

Labour’s Stephen Timms goes next.

Q: You seem to be saying firms won’t get certainty on the transition by the end of this year. But you hope to provide those assurances by the end of March 2018.

Davis says the European council is on 14 and 15 December. So there will only be one working week after that before Christmas.

Q: Guy Verhofstadt has floated the idea of letting British citizens becoming associate citizens of the EU. Has this idea been discussed?

No, says Davis. This is a future relationship issue.

He says it is up to the EU to decide if it wants to do that.

He says he talks to Verhofstadt a lot. “I quite like him, despite our differences,” he says.

Jeremy Lefroy, a Conservative, goes next.

Q: Would you accept that the amount of extra money we might have to pay to the EU, if it were £20bn, would only be 1% of GDP, and therefore less than the benefit we could get from a good trade deal.

Davis says he broadly accepts that.

He suggests this kind of thinking was behind Theresa May’s offer in her Florence speech.

But he says that the government should still not pay more than it has to.

  • Davis accepts that the economic benefits of a trade deal with the EU could outweigh the cost of extra payments equivalent to roughly 1% of GDP.

Davis says he is not a fan of mathematical models for the economy. They are normally wrong.

These models are never right.

Andy Haldane, the Bank of England’s chief economist, admitted this, he says.

Davis says his department will shortly publish the list of sectors of the economy where his department has analysed the impact of Brexit.

Davis says Olly Robbins was moved from being permanent secretary at the Brexit department to being an adviser to Theresa May in Downing Street at his request.

Davis says parliament may not get vote on final Brexit deal until after Brexit happens

Labour’s Seema Malhotra goes next.

Q: So you want a transition agreement agreed by the end of 2018 quarter one?

Yes.

Q: And when will the withdrawal agreement be agreed?

Davis says he has not said. The Northern Ireland aspects require agreement on the future relationship too.

Q: So, is it October next year?

Davis says the agremeent, if not the signing, will the coterminous with the agreement on the forward relationship.

That is why the European council called for “sufficient progress”, not conclusion of phase one.

Q: So it could go to March 2019?

Davis said it could be.

Q: So the vote of parliament on the deal could be after March 2019.

Yes, says Davis, that could happen.

  • Davis says parliament may not get vote on final Brexit deal until after Brexit happens.

While Jacob Rees-Mogg has been at the committee, Radio 5 Live has been broadcasting an interview he conducted with Emma Barnett. In it he described the governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, as an “enemy” of Brexit.

Richard Graham, a Conservative, goes next.

Q; What was the size of the original bill put to us?

Davis says 100m (he does not say whether he is talking pounds or euros) was one of the figures bandied around.

If the UK had accepted that, the EU would have added more, he says.

Davis says at some point the government may publish information about its contingency planning for a no deal Brexit.

Q: If you don’t have plans in place, isn’t the no deal talk a bluff?

Davis says it is not a bluff.

The government needs to do this work anyway.

He says the idea that a two-minute delay would lead to a 17-mile queue at Dover sounds dramatic.

But he says 98% of traffic clears in four seconds.

He says he went to the US-Canada border at Detroit. Their clearance time is 58 seconds. They use trusted trader schemes. The UK uses them less.

A huge amount of work is going into what might happen, he says.

Labour’s Stephen Kinnock goes next.

Q: Wouldn’t any transitional agreements have to be covered by EU law? Isn’t that what the EU negotiation guidelines say?

Davis says that may well be their stance. But the EU may agree further guidelines in December. And Theresa May has said she expected the transition to operate on this basis.

Craig Mackinlay, a Conservative, goes next.

Q: Who is in charge of which agreement?

Davis says the withdrawal agreement, which would include the transition, would be agreed by qualified majority voting. And the European parliament would have to agree. But he expects the council would want unanimity.

A trade agreement would be mixed, he says, meaning the parliaments of EU states would have to agree it too.

John Whittingdale, a Conservative, goes next.

Q: What are the positive benefits the UK will have in April 2019 it did not have before?

Davis says the UK will not be in the EU. It will be able to negotiate and sign, but not enter into force, trade deals with other countries.

At least, that is what the UK is aiming for, he says. But it is a perfectly reasonable aim.

Q: So the UK will not then by enjoying an new freedoms?

Not at that stage, he says.

Q: Will there come a point where you might decide there is no time to do a deal before March 2019. In that case, would you consider a two-year standstill to allow you time to finalise a trade deal?

Davis says that finalising a trade deal in those circumstances would be very difficult.

He says the EU has a habit of agreeing negotiations at the last minute.

It also has a habit of stopping the clock for a few hours at the last minute.

It will be high pressure and very exciting, he says.

  • Davis says he expects final deal only to be agreed at very last minute.

Jonathan Djanogly, a Conservative, goes next.

Q: Will the UK have to accept new EU laws made during the transition?

Davis says it takes two to five years for new EU laws to take effect.

So any new law that did come in would have been agreed by the UK anyway.

Davis says the Commons agreed in December that it would be as open as possible, subject to the need not to undermine the negotiations.

Publishing assessments of the impact of Brexit on different sectors of the economy would amount to giving the other side a price list, he says. So the government won’t do it.

Q: Will you share your assessment of the impact of Brexit on Scotland with the Scottish government?

Davis says these issues have been discussed at the joint ministerial committee.

Q: So this assessment will be shared with the Scottish government?

Davis says he thinks it has been.

Q: It hasn’t.

Davis says the UK government has agreed to share with the Scottish government is sectoral assessments.

The SNP’s Joanna Cherry goes next.

Q: What would be the legal basis for a transition?

Davis says he thinks it would come under article 50.

Q: Barnier said the other day that the UK would end up with a deal like Canada’s. Is that what the UK is aiming for?

No, says Davis. He says Theresa May has made it clear she wants a bespoke agreement. The Canada deal does not say a lot about financial services, he says.

Davis says he expects the transition deal to be agreed early in 2018

Q: When do you think the transition will be agreed?

Davis says he does not expect it to come at the next European council, starting on 14 December. The European council guidelines will only be in then. So it won’t be then.

But he expects it to be agreed in the first quarter of 2018.

  • Davis says he expects the transition deal to be agreed early in 2018.

Q: Will the trade deal be agreed then?

No, says Davis.

Labour’s Pat McFadden goes next.

Q: What do you think of Chris Heaton-Harris’s letter to universities?

Davis says he has not seen it.

McFadden says it has been all over the media. He starts to explain, but Davis says he will not comment on it.

Q: What happens if the UK pays £20bn into the EU during the transition, but does not get a trade deal at the end?

Davis says that is why the government wants a trade deal before the transition starts.

Q: Shouldn’t the government say it will not make these payments until it is guaranteed a trade deal.

Davis says he will not follow Rees-Mogg down this scenario.

Rees-Mogg says it is possible the UK could in effect end up staying in the EU for another two years without guarantee that it will get a trade deal afterwards.

Davis says he does not want to speculate on this.

Davis says UK will only legally owe the EU payments for about one year when it leaves

Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Conservative Brexiter, goes next.

Davis says it makes a change to have Rees-Mogg listening to him. He says at the Tory conference he attended a Rees-Mogg fringe to hear what Rees-Mogg said.

Q: Do you agree with the House of Lords committee saying the UK will not owe anything after it leaves?

Davis says he does not accept that.

The EU put in a “kitchen sink” proposal (ie, throwing the kitchen sink at their assessment of what the UK owes.)

He says the UK rejected their argument. It did not stand up under article 50, or article 70 of the Vienna convention on the law of treaties.

He says his view has always been that what the UK should pay is a political decision, not a legal one.

The legal view is that “we might be on the hook for one year”, he says.

  • Davis says the UK will only legally owe the EU payments for about one year when it leaves.

He says there are different types of no deal Brexit.

If there were a hostile no deal Brexit, which he says is off the probability scale, then the UK would not pay anything, he says.

Davis says he is aiming to get the outlines of a transition agreed in the first quarter of next year.

Davis says EU would require higher price if UK wanted transition to last longer than two years

The Tory Peter Bone goes next.

Q: Why not just extend our membership instead of having a transition?

Davis says people voted to leave.

He also says there is a view in Europe that a two-year transition could be agreed by EU leaders under qualified majority voting.

A longer transition might have to be agreed by unanimity. Or it might count as a mixed agreement, requiring ratification by the parliaments of EU states, he says.

He says if the deal had to be approved by unanimity, the price would be higher.

  • Davis says EU would require a higher price if UK wanted transition to last longer than two years.

Davis says EU leaders may try to impose ‘sudden, last-minute’ conditions in Brexit talks

The DUP’s Sammy Wilson is asking questions now.

Q: How long will it take to negotiate a transition?

Davis says the government wants an arrangement that will be quite simple, and quite similar to the status quo.

Q: Couldn’t we find ourselves indefinitely tied into that? There would be no incentive for the EU to take us out of that.

Davis says that might happen if the transition starts while the final trade deal is still being finalised. That is why the government wants to settle the end state before the transition starts, he explains.

Q: Shouldn’t we make it clear to the EU that no deal is an option?

It is an option, but not the government’s preferred option, he says.

Davis says that it has to remain as an option until the last minute.

He says there is a danger of the EU introducing “sudden, last-minute claims” which could threaten a deal. This happens, he says. He recommends reading Adults in the Room, the book by Yanis Varoufakis, the former Greek finance minister, for more on this.

  • Davis says EU leaders may try to impose ‘sudden, last-minute’ conditions in Brexit talks.

Q: But Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, says negotiating a trade deal will take much longer.

Davis says he and Barnier disagree on this.

He says Barnier originally did not want to open the trade talks until after the UK left.

Davis says it will depend on what the European council decides.

Q: So does Barnier no longer think it will take years?

Davis says he is not saying that. But he is saying Barnier has already shifted.

Davis says trade deal with EU can be agreed within 12 months

Q: Do you still think a free trade agreement can be concluded in 12 months.

Yes, says Davis.

He says the arguments against are based on other situations which are different.

The EU and the UK start with identical regulations.

They want a tariff-free trade deal, he says.

The customs agreement would focus on rules of origin.

The bits of trade deals that are more complex do not fall directly under the trade headings. They are issues like aviation, and data exchange.

Q: But isn’t it true that the UK cannot sign such an agreement until after it has left the EU.

Yes, says Davis, but it could come a “nanosecond” later. The clock can stop at midnight, he says.

Q: Will it be mixed (ie, needing ratification by the parliaments of other EU states.)

Yes, says Davis.

Updated

Q: The PM seemed to suggest that the implementation period would not be agreed until the future trade relationship is agreed. Is that right?

Yes, says Davis. What May said in the chamber is right.

Q: Theresa May suggested that the deep and special partnership would have to be agreed first. People thought the implementation would be agreed first.

Davis says the governments wants to conclude “the form of the implementation” period quickly, and then tie up the whole agreement by March 2019.

Q: So you would agree with the chancellor, who said a transitional arrangement would be a wasting asset. If it is not agreed until next summer, its value diminishes, he says.

Davis agrees, although he says a transition agreed in the summer is not an entirely wasting asset.

Q: What about the common fisheries policy?

Davis says that is a matter for negotiation.

There would have to be quota setting, he says. The government has not set a policy on this.

Q: And what about the European court of justice?

Davis says certainly at the start the UK would be under the ECJ.

But the government would like to move on to a new arrangement during it, involving arbitration.

Q: Isn’t the European council clear in its negotiating guidelines that the UK would have to be under the ECJ?

Davis says the council has not set revised guidelines covering a transition period.

Q: Schengen?

Davis says he expects all of the current security arrangements to remain in place.

Q: And what about EU students? Would they be treated as home students in 2019?

Davis says he expects them to be treated as home students in 2019.

David Davis gives evidence to Commons Brexit committee

David Davis, the Brexit secretary, is giving evidence to the Commons Brexit committee.

Hilary Benn, the chair, starts by asking about the transition.

Q: Do you envisage firms having the same access to the single market?

Yes, says Davis.

He says he also envisages City firms having passporting rights to operate in Europe.

And EU citizens would have something that would feel like free movement, he says.

Some journalists think Chris Heaton-Harris should have been doing that interview himself. This is from my colleague Rowena Mason.

And this is from ITV’s Carl Dinnen.

Yesterday Downing Street disowned the Tory whip Chris Heaton-Harris (or idiot Leninist, according to the Oxford University chancellor Chris Patten) after it emerged he had written to universities trying to find out what they teach about Brexit. But No 10 did not explicitly say he was wrong to send the letter that he did. This morning Jo Johnson, the universities minister, eventually did say Heaton-Harris should not have sent it. After being pressed four times, Johnson told the Today programme:

I think a letter that could have been misinterpreted should probably not have been sent.

But Johnson also played down suggestions that Heaton-Harris was engaged in some act of academic McCarthyism. Johnson explained:

Chris has got a very long-standing interest in European affairs and the history of European thought. And he, I’ve spoken to him, was pursuing inquiries of his own that may in time lead to a book on these questions. So it was more of an academic inquiry, rather than attempt to constrain the freedom that academics rightly have.

If Heaton-Harris, has a long-standing interest in Brexit, he’s in for a treat today. It is one of those days when we could probably maintain three lives blogs. The news agenda is chock-full, and it’s mostly Brexit. Here it is.

9.15am: David Davis, the Brexit secretary, gives evidence to the Commons Brexit committee.

9.30am: Preliminary growth figures for the third quarter of 2017 are released.

10am: David Lidington, the justice secretary, gives evidence to the Commons justice committee.

10.15am: Justine Greening, the education secretary, gives evidence to the Commons education committee.

12pm: Theresa May faces Jeremy Corbyn at PMQs.

Around 1pm: MPs begin an opposition day debate on social care. The vote is at about 4pm and the motion says:

That this House notes the Conservative party’s manifesto commitment to a funding proposal for social care which would have no cap on care costs and would include the value of homes in the means test for care at home; further notes that this proposal would leave people with a maximum of only £100,000 of assets; calls on the government to confirm its intention not to proceed with this commitment; and further calls on the government to remove the threat to withdraw social care funding from, and stop fines on, local authorities for delayed transfers of care and to commit to the extra funding needed to close the social care funding gap for 2017 and the remaining years of the 2017 parliament.

2.15pm: Sir Ivan Rogers, the UK’s former ambassador to the EU, gives evidence to the Commons Treasury committee about Brexit.

2.30pm: HM Revenue and Customs give evidence to the Commons public accounts committee about Brexit.

2.30pm: Sir Michael Fallon, the defence secretary, gives evidence to the Commons defence committee.

2.45pm: Sir Keir Starmer, the shadow Brexit secretary, and Dominic Grieve, the Conservative former attorney general, give evidence to the Commons procedure committee about the EU withdrawal bill.

This morning I will be focusing mostly on the David Davis hearing. Then I will concentrate on PMQs, and in the afternoon I will be again focusing on the Brexit hearings, although somehow I will try to fit everything else in.

You can read all today’s Guardian politics stories here.

Here is the Politico Europe round-up of this morning’s political news from Jack Blanchard’s Playbook. And here is the PoliticsHome list of today’ top 10 must reads.

If you want to follow me or contact me on Twitter, I’m on @AndrewSparrow.

I try to monitor the comments BTL but normally I find it impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, do include “Andrew” in it somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I do try to answer direct questions, although sometimes I miss them or don’t have time.

If you want to attract my attention quickly, it is probably better to use Twitter.

Updated

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100's of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Another Day, Another Round Of Internet Users Calling Out The Kardashians For Major Photo Editing
Here we go again.
Cinemablend
Cinemablend
Tom Holland, King of Marvel spoilers, also managed to ruin the Avengers movies for Zendaya: "I was like... 'Why did you tell me that?!'"
Love means never having to say you're sorry, or something
Total Film
Total Film
Every "Groundbreaking" Outfit From Anne Hathaway's 'The Devil Wears Prada 2' Press Tour
This fashion marathon isn't moving at a glacial pace.
Marie Claire
Marie Claire
“I believe with all my heart that it will translate to something good”: Lindsey Buckingham teases reunion with Stevie Nicks following renewed interest in their pre-Fleetwood Mac album
The two publicly fell out in 2018 and Buckingham subsequently left Fleetwood Mac
Guitar World
Guitar World
Newly spotted Clone Wars Easter egg in Ahsoka season 1 might be a huge hint at the season 2 plot
One Ahsoka detail might be a huge hint for the future
Total Film
Total Film
Why Unrecognisable Kelly Osbourne Is Risking Everything to Buy Back the 'MTV House' After Ozzy's Death
Kelly Osbourne has shared her family's attempts to buy back the Beverly Hills MTV House from The Osbournes, amid grief over Ozzy's death and her split from Sid Wilson. The property holds strong family memories she is determined to reclaim.
International Business Times UK
International Business Times UK
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.
Download on the AppStore Get it on Google Play