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Ex-England footballer Sol Campbell says he's not put his name forward to be Conservative parliamentary candidate in the safe Tory seat of Kensington, which is being vacated by Sir Malcolm Rifkind. But the former Arsenal and Tottenham footballer hasn't ruled out a new career in politics altogether. Instead, he says he has ambitions "elsewhere in the political arena". Mayor of London perhaps? We can't see that dividing opinion in north London at all.

House of Commons
Parliament

Communities Minister Brandon Lewis is making the second statement of the day, which is on the government's plan for thousands of new homes in Ebbsfleet in Kent. He wants to hurry the pace of the development up.

tweets:, external Labour, if elected, want mandatory review of case notes for all deaths in hospital - Professor Nick Black to advise review

tweets, external: Parliament of losers: the make-up of the Commons if candidates who finished LAST in 2010 had been awarded each seat:

Image source, David Ottewell

Labour's approach to the economy could go down better with voters if Ed Miliband actually comes up with some economic "ideas", Anatole Kaletsky, chairman of the Institute for New Economic Thinking, writes in Prospect magazine, external. "Miliband must explain that a new model of global capitalism has been evolving since the 2008 crisis and that Labour will support this evolutionary process, while the Tories will try to resist it," he urges. Only by unifying his policies around a 'new capitalism' will he succeed in "capturing the public imagination".

Buzzfeed

Bad news for the Beer, Baccy and Crumpet party, which has been told by the Electoral Commission it is going to have to change its name on the basis that "crumpet" could be "considered as describing women as a sexual object in a demeaning way and would cause offence". Leader Ray Hall has told BuzzFeed, external his party has been "nobbled" because its leaflets with the name on had already been prepared. He says he has a plan B though: "If they object to crumpet, because it's offensive and sexist, I'll add an 'S' to the end of crumpet which would not refer to females but refer to the crumpet cakes."

As Hollywood star Michael Sheen is applauded for delivering a passionate political speech to a pro-NHS march on St David's Day, our colleagues over on the Wales team have had a look at whether he could make a move into politics.

tweets:, external Sir Bruce Keogh, of NHS England, to review professional codes of doctors and nurses to ensure incentives to prevent cover ups

David Cameron says children have suffered horrific sexual abuse on an "industrial scale" with too many people and organisations "walking on by".

tweets, external: if we have a sin bin then I can keep a list of naughty MPs. Which would be excellent.

tweets:, external Jeremy Hunt on Morecambe Bay : it was a second Mid Staffs, where problems, albeit on smaller scale, occurred largely over same time period.

BBC Radio 4 Today

Tim Loughton, former children's minister and Conservative MP, is critical of the idea of mandatory reporting of all abuse allegations - an idea favoured by Labour. "Good social workers - and most social workers are doing a decent job in difficult circumstances - need to build up a relationship of trust with vulnerable girls, and boys in many cases as well, who're reluctant to come forward. If those victims now know that their concern is going to be escalated right to the police, and there will be implications from that, and it will be out of the control of that social worker, with whom they've got a relationship, in some cases it's going to mean that some of those victims don't come forward."

House of Commons
Parliament

Shadow health secretary Andy Burnham, responding to Jeremy Hunt's statement about maternity services at Furness General Hospital, says getting to the truth should have been more straightforward. "Bereaved families should never again have to fight in the way these families have to get answers," he says. He notes that the problems don't seem to have been fixed. He quotes the report saying further difficulties were noted as recently as mid-2014. The investigation into Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust found 20 major failures in care from 2004 to 2013.

House of Commons
Parliament

Jeremy Hunt says he is asking Sir Bruce Keogh to review the professional codes of both doctors and nurses in a bid to prevent further cover-ups. "Medical notes were destroyed, mistakes covered up, quite possibly because of a defensive culture because the individuals involved thought they would lose their jobs if they were discovered to be responsible for death," he tells MPs. "But… within sensible professional boundaries, no-one should lose their job for an honest mistake made with the best intentions. The only cardinal offence is not to report that mistake openly so that the correct lessons can be learned. "

BBC Radio 4

Just before Heath Secretary Jeremy Hunt began his statement on the unnecessary deaths at Furness General Hospital, Barrow MP John Woodcock spoke on The World At One about the importance of not jumping to close the maternity unit. That, he said, would put more lives at risk by requiring mothers to travel an hour to Lancaster. "We have to make the lasting legacy of this an actual sustained, improved maternity unit," he said. "Improvements have been made in recent months - they're fragile but we need to sustain them."

House of Commons
Parliament

In the Commons, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt is now on his feet making a statement about maternity services at Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust, after a report by Dr Bill Kirkup found a "dysfunctional" maternity unit's "substandard care" led to the unnecessary deaths of 11 babies and one mother. Mr Hunt begins: "There is no greater pain for a parent to lose a child, and to do so knowing it was because of mistakes that we now know were covered up makes the agony even worse… we can at least provide the answers to the family's questions about what happened and why, and in doing so try and prevent a similar tragedy in the future." Our story on Dr Kirkup's report is here.

BBC Radio 4

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Yesterday evening's warning from Speaker John Bercow that parliament will have to be "abandoned" if steps aren't taken to fix the Palace of Westminster in the next 20 years have got Westminster wondering what will actually happen to the building. John Thurso MP, the House of Commons commissioner, says patience is needed. "What we're determined to do is take a decision that offers the best value for money for the taxpayer," he tells The World At One. The problem is they won't know what that decision is until they've received professional advice, he explains. Read our story on John Bercow's comments here.

Iain Watson
Political correspondent, BBC News

Some points from this morning's lobby briefing:

• Cabinet this morning was treated to a presentation on "women and equalities" by Nicky Morgan and Jo Swinson; another on life sciences (particularly the human genome project) by Jeremy Hunt; and, given the Mexican state visit, the foreign secretary outlined British policy on Latin America.

• Sir John Major has been asked to attend Boris Nemtsov's funeral in Moscow. The PM's spokesman denied this was a provocative act towards President Putin, saying: "We want constructive relationships... We thought it was fitting for him to represent us."

• The PM's spokesman wouldn't be drawn on when parliament would be recalled after the election and if the PM felt it should be swift in order to give MPs involvement in any coalition negotiations. "Announcements will be announced when they are announced," said the PM's spokesman, helpfully.

BBC Radio 4

Chief Constable Sara Thornton, of Thames Valley Police, tells The World At One there's a clear pattern, as backed up by today's report, that the perpetrators of child sexual exploitation are mainly of Pakistani origin. "The report suggests somebody needs to do some independent research as to why this is happening," she says. "The government could commission it but it needs to be academically robust and it needs to be independent."

BBC Radio 4

Maris Stratulis, from the British Association of Social Workers, says today's report on child sexual exploitation has identified that the culture change everyone agrees is necessary must extend well beyond the actions of junior staff. "There's a disproportion here of people focusing on the frontline practitioners," she tells The World At One. "We want leaders and governors to be asking the right questions." The serious case review into Oxfordshire indicated that practitioners had been working in isolation, rather than sharing information and working collaboratively.