Here's a round-up of today’s political developments so far:

• Chancellor George Osborne has vowed to bring tax credit spending "under control" despite the government's defeats in the House of Lords
• Opposition peers failed in a bid do inflict another defeat on the government, this time over the issue of electoral registration
• The UK economy's growth slowed in the third quarter of the year, weighed down by the performance of the construction and manufacturing sectors
• The UK is to extend the stay of its troops in Afghanistan, Defence Secretary Michael Fallon has told MPs
• The issue of the so-called "tampon tax" on sanitary products will be raised with the European Commission, a UK Treasury minister has said
• Culture Secretary John Whittingdale has said newspapers are "entitled" to concerns over the BBC's online news operation
• A joint session of the Supreme Court and Privy Council is to hear appeals in two cases where convictions were gained under the doctrine of joint enterprise

Opposition peers in the House of Lords have failed in efforts to inflict another defeat on the government, this time over electoral registration.

Peers rejected a Lib Dem attempt to block moves to accelerate the full switchover to individual registration by 257 votes to 246. 

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Paul Gregg, professor of economic and social policy at Bath University, suggests the most sensible way for Chancellor George Osborne to soften the blow of the tax credit changes would be to increase the amount which people earn before the credits start to be withdrawn.

He says this would be "relatively low cost". But it would mean George Osborne either has to slow down the pace of deficit reduction, or try to find the money from elsewhere, he adds.

Professor Paul Gregg is a former special advisor to Gordon Brown at the Treasury and helped design tax credits.

He tells BBC Radio 4's PM programme the system "has become very expensive", in part because it became a way of trying to "soften the blow" of the recession - with Labour putting extra money into tax credits.

Falling wages over the last few years have also "increased the burden", he adds.

Back in the House of Lords, Conservative peer Lord Cormack addresses the number of Liberal Democrat peers who are eligible to sit in the upper chamber.

The Lib Dems have tabled the motion to throw out the timetable to bring in individual voter registration.

"You have 104 more members than you do in the elected House," Lord Cormack tells them.

If the size of the Lords is to be addressed, the relative size of parties in the Commons should be kept in mind, he argues.

The UK Independence Party has launched a review, promised in its election manifesto, of Britain's family courts system. 

It proposes more extensive use of Special Guardianship Orders, "particularly where a child is made a ward of an extended family member, such as a grandparent", and to "remove the current blanket ban on media reporting of placement and adoption proceedings".

At a cross-party event in the Commons, the party's only MP Douglas Carswell, said "secrecy" within the system was "allowing social workers to ride roughshod over ordinary people and resulting in the unnecessary breakup of families and forced adoptions".

Image source, PA

Gareth Stace, director of trade body UK Steel, has said the industry in Britain risks bleeding to death unless the government takes urgent action within weeks.

He told the Business Select Committee that the situation was very grave, saying:

Mr Stace said that within the last few months, almost a fifth of the work force had lost their jobs, or was under threat of losing them.

He said the government needed to take action within weeks in five key areas - chief among them, the cost of energy which, he said, was double that paid by the steel sector in France and Germany.

The World at One
BBC Radio 4

Former Conservative Chancellor Ken Clarke said peers have "just cheerily put on hold" £4.5bn of tax credit savings.

The World at One
BBC Radio 4

Conservative peer and former cabinet minister Lord Forsyth told BBC Radio 4's World at One programme earlier the idea of flooding the House of Lords with Tory peers following yesterday's tax credits defeat would be "absolutely insane".

House of Lords
Parliament

Labour spokesman Lord Kennedy of Southwark has moved an amendment to Lord Tyler's motion to reject the order on the grounds it "goes against" the recommendations of the Electoral Commission.

Labour backs individual electoral registration but opposes the government's move to bring implementation forward to "a mere six weeks away".

Lord Kennedy told peers the government is making "a rash decision".

But Conservative Lord Lexden insisted: "No-one will be robbed of the right to vote by this order."

He said online registration will make the process easier and "the young will be well-represented, as they should be".

House of Lords
Parliament

The House of Lords is debating a motion to reject the transitional timetable to move to individual voter registration.

Lord Tyler, who tabled the motion, claimed the order meant "up to 1.9 million people who are currently on the register, and were on it at the general election in May, will be dropped off it at a stroke".

He said the government seemed "prepared to risk legal challenges" to forthcoming elections in Scotland, Wales and London.

Izin Akhabau
Political reporter

Earlier today, the Commons Justice Committee discussed fees and charges in the court system. Recent reforms mean that anybody convicted of a criminal offence faces a mandatory charge, and civil offences carry enhanced charges.

Frances Crook, Chief Executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform argued that this was unfair in some cases; such as people in court for begging, which is a criminal offence. She cited the case of a 19-year-old, arrested for begging, calling it "medieval". 

Questions are also being raised over what the abolition of fees and charges in the court system would mean, and how else savings can be made in the running of the courts system.

Penelope Gibbs from Transform Justice suggested the government should reform its current prosecution system entirely, rather than chasing "piecemeal" reforms. She cited initiatives such as Operation Turning Point, which has been trialled in Birmingham.

However, there is some support for the court charges, with figures from a Magistrates Association survey saying 56% of 960 magistrates being in favour of court charges on principle, and Crook suggested that charges were fine as long as judges could exercise discretion.

You can watch the whole meeting here, external

Giving evidence were Frances Crook, Chief Executive, Howard League for Penal Reform, Phil Bowen, Director, The Centre for Justice Innovation, Ben Summerskill, Director, The Criminal Justice Alliance, and Penelope Gibbs, Transform Justice; Richard Monkhouse, Chairman, and Malcom Richardson, Deputy Chairman, Magistrates’ Association

Alex Forsyth
Political correspondent

Image source, EPA

On Sunday an emergency summit was called to address the migrant situation in the Western Balkans.

European Parliament President Martin Schulz said he left the talks - described as challenging - feeling “deeply worried”.  He told the European Parliament:

Image source, AFP/Getty Images

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said the need for a meeting to encourage discussion between member states showed the EU was "not in good shape".

He said last week countries were “finger pointing” at each other which was the “politics of panic” which would “damage European solidarity”.

He urged member states to deliver on commitments made in dealing with the migrant crisis.

Alex Forsyth
Political correspondent

Image source, Reuters

EU leaders have warned the migrant crisis could threaten the cohesion of the European Union and cause “tectonic changes” in Europe’s political landscape.

Addressing the European Parliament in Strasbourg, European Council President Donald Tusk said the crisis was the biggest the EU had faced for a decade.

Mr Tusk said these were "extraordinary  times” that required "extraordinary measures, extraordinary sacrifices and extraordinary solidarity” and said he did not want to think of the alternative if member states and European institutions failed to handle the crisis together with unity.

The Daily Politics

The constitutional issues raised by Monday's votes in the House of Lords on tax credit cuts are explored by Liberal Democrat peer Paul Tyler and the constitutional expert Vernon Bogdanor.

They spoke to Jo Coburn, and guest Toby Young, about the fallout from the vote, and how the government might act after it lost a vote on welfare changes. 

The Daily Politics

A Conservative MP defended government plans for tax credits, saying it was a "crazy situation" where spending on them had risen from £6bn to £30bn, while in-work poverty was rising.

Oliver Dowden, who was once David Cameron's deputy chief of staff, said a lack of action would mean cuts to health and education spending, or higher taxes.

And he spoke to Jo Coburn on the Daily Politics about the "legitimacy" of Lib Dems using their 100 peers to "overturn something that has been introduced by a majority government, and which was promised and clearly signalled during the election campaign.”

A government minister has been corrected by colleagues in the House of Lords after appearing to confuse the government's internal budget procedure with the American TV series "Crime Scene Investigation".

Internet Security Minister Lady Shields was asked by Labour about the government's Comprehensive Spending Review - widely known in Westminster as the "CSR".

The Anglo-American technology executive - who was appointed to the Lords last year - asked peers: "I'm sorry, I'm not familiar with... What is CSI?"

Labour's culture spokesman, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara, explained to Baroness Shields: "The CSR is forthcoming and will be involving public expenditure for the whole of the public sector." A number of peers then mouthed at her the words "Comprehensive Spending Review".

The minister replied: "Thank you for bringing the Comprehensive Spending Review to my attention and we'll look into it."

Lady Shields was appointed as a minister in May this year, having previously acted as a "digital adviser" to David Cameron.

In his interview with BBC economics editor Robert Peston, George Osborne said he had always supported and voted in favour of an elected House of Lords. But he said there wasn't a Commons majority in favour of it.

He added that the Lords, while it existed in its current form, should "respect" the constitutional convention that says the elected Commons votes on financial matters and the unelected Lords doesn't.