As the curtain comes down on the live page for another day, here's a round-up of what's been happening in Westminster today.

The UK overseas aid budget should be used to stabilise countries and discourage mass migration, the defence secretary Michael Fallon says.

The Lib Dems launch  an investigation into allegations Norman Lamb's leadership campaign team may have breached data protection rules. 

BBC director general Tony Hall says he believes the licence fee has "got 10 years of life left in it". 

Former defence secretary Liam Fox has urged the Conservative Party not to use any of its money to back the campaign to stay in the European Union.

He said funds and other party resources must not be put behind either side of the referendum argument given the Tories were clearly split on the issue.

The MP, who has yet to decide which side he will back, rebelled earlier this week over plans to scrap "purdah" rules limiting government announcements before a vote.

Read more about this story here. 

Image source, Reuters

Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond will join EU counterparts in Luxembourg tomorrow to discuss a European naval operation in the Mediterranean to combat people smuggling. Britain is deploying survey vessel HMS Enterprise to the region to take over from HMS Bulwark -pictured above - early next month. A British Merlin helicopter will continue taking part in operations. GCHQ, the UK's listening post in Cheltenham, is reportedly being deployed for the first time to identify criminal gangs smuggling migrants to the Libyan coast.

Was David Cameron only joking when he told journalists on the Conservatives’ battle bus during the election campaign that he would "close down" the BBC?

The exchange has been picked up by several newspapers on Sunday, but was actually first reported earlier this month by the BBC's political editor Nick Robinson in Election Notebook, his account of the election.

At the time, he wrote: “News reaches me from the Tory campaign bus that the prime minister marched on board and called the story rubbish. When one hack jokingly muttered 'bloody BBC', the PM responded, 'I am going to close them down after the election.' Joke? Expression of frustration? Threat? All three? No-one could be sure. In a few weeks' time, working out which it was could really, really matter.”

Mr Robinson has now told the Guardian, external :

Conservative peer and former cabinet minister Baroness Warsi has had plenty to say about a speech David Cameron made on Friday about the radicalisation of young British men and women. In it, the prime minister claimed some families and communities were "quietly condoning" the ideology of jihadist groups like Islamic State. This is what she has been saying on the Sunday Politics in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire:

Sunday Politics is coming to an end. Andrew Neil's main guest next week is Nick Clegg - in what will be one of the outgoing Lib Dem leader's first major interviews since the election and one of the last before he steps down next month. As attention turns to who will succeed him, the BBC's Alan Soady says leadership contender Norman Lamb is "furious" about the controversy surrounding his campaign and allegations that polling it has conducted may have broken data protection laws. Read more about the story here. 

Image source, PA

There have been plenty of machinations within UKIP since the election, the latest being speculation last week about the future of its deputy chair Suzanne Evans. An internal email suggested she had been dropped as a spokeswoman after comments she made about party leader Nigel Farage. UKIP MEP Steven Woolfe tells the Sunday Politics that Ms Evans is playing an "important role" in the party and whoever sent the email had "overstepped the mark" and acted without authority. Asked what role Mr Farage would play in the referendum campaign - the source of the original row - he said the UKIP leader was the "most transformative politician" on the issue in the past 20 years and would play a major part - including possibly taking part in a debate with David Cameron. 

Liam Fox says the Conservative Party should not campaign on either side of the referendum debate or allow its resources to be used. The same rules that apply to the use and abuse of government machinery should apply to the party, he tells Sunday Politics. He also says cabinet ministers should be free to speak their minds on the issue during the referendum as he knows some favour leaving the EU. Should the prime minister insist on enforcing collective ministerial responsibility on the issue, Dr Fox says he is "sure he can get it but I am not sure he would have the same cabinet". 

Image source, PA

Former defence secretary Liam Fox says he is not ready to join a newly-formed cross-party group preparing the ground for the UK to leave the EU. While he says the status quo in the UK's relationship with the EU is not acceptable, a "bit of empiricism" is needed in the debate and he will make up his mind about which side he will back at an "appropriate point" in the future when the EU's response to David Cameron's demands becomes clearer. He says the PM will have to set out his negotiating aims more clearly in the run-up to the party's annual conference in September if he hopes to hold the referendum in October 2016. 

In a film for the Sunday Politics, the BBC's Adam Fleming says a senior business figure will be "wined and dined" this week to see whether they would be willing to head the No campaign, which will try to persuade voters the UK should leave the EU in the forthcoming referendum. The newly elected chair of the Commons Foreign Affairs committee, Crispin Blunt, tells the programme that there is a "really positive" future for the UK outside the EU because the country has different interests from its European partners and its agenda is "global not regional". 

Jeremy Corbyn wasn't able to make it onto Sunday Politics today. In his place, Diane Abbott - who backs Mr Corbyn and represented the Labour left in the 2010 election - says her colleague's agenda is "very popular" and commentators are "going to get a shock" about how well he does in the leadership contest. Mr Corbyn is authentic and will put "himself on the side of the 99% against the 1%", she says. The Labour left, she argues, does not oppose all cuts to public spending but believes the opposition must "place itself at the head of the anti-austerity movement" if it is to fare better in 2020. The government's cuts are "unfair and unnecessary" and the focus should be on axing Trident and other defence programs as well as curbing tax advantages for the better-off, Ms Abbott adds. 

John Pienaar
Pienaar’s Politics

Pienaar's Politics is drawing to an end. Guest Peter Stringfellow, the businessman and Conservative Party supporter and donor, says he has been approached to stand for Parliament in Sheffield in the past but has categorically ruled it out, claiming he is not "clever enough". He says he remains a big fan of David Cameron but says Boris Johnson - who he calls a "big daft kid" - needs to get his act together to sort out the dispute between London's black cab drivers and online app Uber.