Parliament wants to know your views about taking children out of school during term time

The Sun newspaper gave a boost to the publicity-starved Lib Dems today, allowing party leader Tim Farron to explain why he thinks fining parents for taking their children out of school for familiy holidays is "mad". There was just one problem...

Brian Wheeler

So will the new "English votes for English laws" plan hand more power to Commons Speaker John Bercow?

He will, after all, have the job of deciding which bills English MPs will get a veto over.

In practice, civil servants will decide in most cases whether a piece of legislation applies to England only, England and Wales only, or the whole of the UK and so on. A bit like they do now in fact.

Speaker Bercow will be expected to abide by their judgement in most cases.

There are certain to be exceptions to this rule, however. When Scottish MPs feel strongly that a new English law will have a knock-on effect north of the border and put pressure on Mr Bercow to exercise his judgement.

That's when the fun will really start.... 

Ed Vaizey tells the Commons the creative industries are worth £76 billion a year and have grown at three times the rate of the economy as a whole

House of Commons
Parliament

The Conservative MP Fiona Bruce will ask an urgent question in the Commons later this morning - at around 10:30 BST - about Chinese human rights.

She is asking for a response to reports that "the human rights lawyer Zhang Kai faces a severe prison sentence or death penalty for defending civil liberties."

A foreign office minister will respond.

Today Programme
BBC Radio 4

The former Conservative Chancellor Lord Lawson has criticised the government's proposed changes to tax credits, telling the Today Programme: "I think that there may be areas where there could be some tweaking."

"You cannot remove these tax credits without people being worse off, the question is who is going to be worse off.

"The tweaking would be... to make the burden of this rather less for the people towards the bottom end of the scale."

But he added that "if you're going to eliminate the deficit this is an area you have to go for" and said tax credits has got "completely out of hand".

Asked about the role of the House of Lords in examining - and potentially rejecting - the legislation, Lord Lawson said: "It would be wholly wrong constitutionally for the unelected House of Lords to do anything to kill anything of a financial nature that has been through the House of Commons not once but twice."

Image source, Reprieve UK / Handout

Shaker Aamer, the last British prisoner in Guantanamo Bay may be released soon. He has been detained for 13 years, 7 years longer than any other British prisoner or resident.

David Cameron, who intervened to secure Aamer's release said: "I obviously want to reassure people that everything to ensure public safety is put in place, but I’m glad this has been brought to a conclusion."

Shaker Aamer himself said he is "not getting hopes up".

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Today Programme
BBC Radio 4

The SNP's Pete Wishart says it would make more sense to have an English Parliament and have the UK Parliament for a federal situation to cover "the big issues". What is being tried is turning the UK's parliament into a "quasi English Parliament". Chris Grayling replies that what is being proposed is a "strong devolved structure" and says an English Parliament would mean no say at all for Scottish MPs, rather than the current plans which just give them less of a say over non-Scottish issues. 

Leader of the Commons Chris Grayling rejects the idea that disputes over what is an English-only issue could end up in the supreme court. He said

Today Programme
BBC Radio 4

Pete Wishart, who shadows the Leader of the Commons for the SNP, says "politicising our Speaker is the most unforgivable thing" that he is being done. It could put the Speaker at odds with Scottish MPs who don't agree with his judgement, with differences going to judicial review and possibly the Supreme Court.

Today Programme
BBC Radio 4

The SNP's Pete Wishart says the proposals to bring in England-MPs only votes will render Scottish MPs "second class" MPs and politicise the position of Speaker, because he will be deciding whether or not legislation affects only England. He adds that the leader of the Commons Chris Grayling has failed to persuade any party to back the proposals.

Image source, Getty Images

Bank customers could save an average of £70 a year by switching their current accounts to another provider, the regulator has ruled.

After an 18 month inquiry, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has stopped short of recommending a break up of the banks.

But it said, external customers should be prompted to change providers if their branch closes or they are overcharged.

The CMA concluded that the current market is not working competitively.

It said that the majority of consumers - 57% - have stayed with their provider for more than 10 years.

And 37% have had their accounts for more than 20 years.

Separate figures from the Current Account Switching Service showed that the number of people transferring their current account has fallen by 14% in the last year.

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Image source, Thinkstock

The health secretary has misrepresented a key study used to back the case for more seven-day NHS care, the editor of the British Medical Journal says.

Dr Fiona Godlee has written to Jeremy Hunt about recent comments where, she says, he has implied the higher weekend death risk is due to poor staffing.

She says the study used to back this up - published in her journal in September - did not apportion blame.

But the government said there was enough evidence to support the claims.

The study, external has been repeatedly used by Mr Hunt.

He has found himself at loggerheads with the British Medical Association, which owns the BMJ, over the junior doctor and consultant contracts.

The research identified what it called a "weekend effect" in England.

It said over the year studied - 2013-14 - there had been 11,000 excess deaths from Friday to Monday.

This was based on an analysis of hospital records, which found an admission on Fridays led to a 2% increased risk of death compared with Wednesdays, on Saturdays it was 10%, on Sundays 15% and Mondays 5%.

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Image source, PA

Police forces in England and Wales do not represent the communities they serve and must increase ethnic diversity, Theresa May will say later.

The home secretary will say there are no ethnic minority chief constables and criticise a lack of female officers, saying it is "not good enough".

The College of Policing said "there are no quick fixes" to the problem.

But Franstine Jones, from the National Black Police Association, said forces "need to recognise their black talent".

Four forces - Cheshire, Durham, Dyfed-Powys and North Yorkshire - do not have a single black officer of African-Caribbean origin, Mrs May will say.

The forces do have some officers from other ethnic minorities.

But Mrs May will tell the National Black Police Association conference that the 43 forces in England and Wales are not racially representative of the communities they serve.

She will also challenge police over the number of female officers, who currently make up 28% of the police workforce - despite representing 51% of the population.

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