House of Commons
Parliament

SNP Health Spokesperson Philippa Whitford says that when politicians talk about funding the NHS "it will always be political".

She describes National Insurance as "bizarre" pointing out that it starts when you earn £7,000 and stops when at retirement and when a person could be "incredibly wealth".

House of Commons
Parliament

Labour's Debbie Abrahams uses her speech to call for a repeal of the Health and Social Care Act.

Conservative Maria Caulfield intervenes to say that, as a former NHS employee, the last thing staff wanted was more reform and more reinventing the wheel.

Debbie Abrahams agrees and says Labour wanted to repeal the act without re-organisation.

The Daily Politics

Susana Mendonca
BBC Radio London Political Reporter

Image source, Getty Images

Labour's London mayoral candidate Sadiq Khan is alienating voters by distancing himself from the party's leader Jeremy Corbyn, Respect leader George Galloway has claimed.

Mr Galloway, also standing in the capital's mayoral race, told BBC Radio London's Vanessa Feltz that if he was the Labour candidate - he would win "by a landslide".

He said Sadiq Khan on the other hand was “going out of his way every day in unlikely places to show how non-Labour he is. 

Mr Galloway said he thought all the candidates running in the London Mayoral election were “terminally boring” and joked that the front runners, Conservative Zac Goldsmith and Sadiq Khan were “just not big enough”.

Mr Galloway, a former Labour MP, told Vanessa Feltz his Respect party had "the exciting campaign".

The BBC's Vicki Young explains what the government's latest plans for accepting child refugees from Syria and other conflict zones mean.

House of Lords
Parliament

Baroness Williams closes her final speech to the House with a hope that the UK remains part of the European Union.

Labour peer Baroness Bakewell follows her and, as is customary, pays tribute to the retiring Lib Dem peer.

"We have much to thank her for," Baroness Bakewell says.

Baroness Williams of Crosby - better known as Shirley Williams - has given her last speech in the House of Lords.

She hailed the BBC as "one of the great institutions of the UK", adding that she hoped it "will be able to flourish".

She stressed that she was "passionately committed" to the UK remaining in and taking "a leading part of the EU".

Lady Williams said she believed the UK should continue to contribute on issues such as climate change and multi-national companies "that take advantage of us".

Lady Williams, who is in her 80s, was one of the “Gang of Four” who dramatically left the Labour Party to form a new political party, the Social Democratic Party in the early 1980s

The CBI says some sectors of the UK economy "are having a tough time" - despite official figures showing growth of 0.5% in the three months to the end of December.

Rain Newton-Smith, CBI Director of Economics, said manufacturers "are still feeling the hit from weaker global growth and competitive pressures from abroad.

"And while low oil prices are a boon for the economy as a whole, businesses in the North Sea industry are suffering."

She welcomed David Cameron's pledge to support the North Sea oil industry, ahead of his visit to Aberdeen.

But Ms Newton-Smith added: "The government must continue to engage with industry closely to help ensure a smooth transition to lower oil prices.

“While the economy should see decent growth over 2016, global risks have ramped up noticeably - particularly with prospects for emerging markets looking weaker, bearing down on the outlook for the world economy.”

As you can see if you watch the entry below, David Cameron has defended comments he made referring to asylum seekers in Calais as “a bunch of migrants”.

He said he was making a “very clear point” that Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn was “meeting with migrants and telling them they could all come to Britain”.

“I was very clear what I meant yesterday which was that Labour has an open-door migration policy,” he said. 

The Daily Politics

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Britain "is playing its role" to help deal with the refugee crisis, David Cameron has insisted.

He claimed taking people from the region was the right approach rather than encouraging them to try to make the "perilous" journey to Europe.

Speaking on a visit to the Lake District, the prime minister said: "No country is doing more that Britain to help deal with the Syrian refugee crisis - and second to America, Britain has spent £1 billion" over four years to help the situation.

Last year Britain took 2,500 refugee children, he said.

"We are playing our role and I've said we are prepared to take more orphans from the region - but I think that is the right approach to take them from the region."

He added that Britain was funding the refugee camps and hosting the Syria conference next week.

The Daily Politics

House of Lords
Parliament

The Earl of Courtown is responding to questions on a statement made earlier in the House of Commons on arms exports to Saudi Arabia.

Lord Hylton says "the government claimed to have the best arms control in the world", despite evidence that weapons "fall into the wrong hands" and have been used against civilian targets. He asks what representations have been made to Saudi Arabia about "proper use" of British sold weapons.

The Earl of Courtown says "we are aware" of allegations about targets attacked in Yemen, and  "our relationship with the Saudi government does enable us to pressurise them".

So what's been hitting the headlines today...?

Chancellor George Osborne has delayed plans for a public sale of Lloyds Bank shares, saying British people will get the chance to buy the shares but only "when the time is right". "I want to create a share owning democracy," he said. "It's also my responsibility to ensure economic responsibility so with these turbulent financial markets now is not the right time to have that sale."

Refugees

The UK is to accept more unaccompanied child refugees from Syria and other conflict zones - but the government has not said how many. The Home Office will work with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to identify "exceptional cases" from camps in Syria and neighbouring countries. 

Water pun

Well flooding has been a hot topic this morning. A government pledge of an extra £2 million to boost tourism in the North following recent floods has been described by Labour as "a drop in the ocean". Meanwhile, the Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee have announced an inquiry into future flood prevention in England.

Self assessment finished?

While small firms up and down the country are finalising their tax assessments, the European Competition Commissioner says she is willing to investigate Google's tax arrangements should someone complain about them. Her comments come as the SNP's economy spokesman, Stewart Hosie, says it has sent a letter calling for such a probe.

And finally... Can't find dad?

A UKIP councillor was so busy attending meetings that his family reported him to police as "missing". As reported in the EDP, external, Denis Crawford, who represents Thetford East on Norfolk County Council, had not returned his daughter's calls for two days, so she alerted the police.

Image source, Getty Images

MPs are all "a bunch of migrants", Shadow leader of the House Chris Bryant claimed as he criticised David Cameron's use of the phrase in reference to peopl in Calais.

"With reference to Prime Minister's Questions yesterday, the first building on this site was built by King Canute - a Danish migrant," he said. 

"Westminster Hall was built by William Rufus, son of William the Conqueror - the clue is in the name. The Royal Family has blood from Aragon, Holland, Hanover and Greece.

"The Rhondda was built with the sweat of Irish and Italian migrants. Our Speaker is descended from Romanian Jews - the Lords Speaker's family hails from Portugal.

"The families of the Business Secretary (Sajid Javid) and the member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) are from Pakistan.

"The member for Richmond Park's (Zac Goldsmith) father represented France in the European Parliament. The Corbyns were Norman French, the Graylings were probably French-Huguenots and God knows where the Bryants came from.

"Can the Leader of the House confirm that we are all a bunch of migrants?"

Commons Leader Chris Grayling replied:

House of Commons
Parliament

Labour MP Liz Kendall opens her speech by acknowledging that the NHS is too big and too important "to take the politics out".

However, she hopes a social care commission could create the political space needed to agree a long-term settlement.

She argues that over the years there have been reviews, commissions, green and white papers - all of which have failed to create "genuine cross-party involvement".

There has been much talk about how to pay for the increasing health requirements of a rising population.

Kate Barker and her colleagues on the King's Fund Commission have come up with some new ideas on where the money might come from and attempted to bring down some kites which have been flying recently.

The Barker Commission's task was to set out what a new deal for health and social care in England might look like.

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House of Commons
Parliament

Health Select Committee Chair Sarah Wollaston sounds a note of caution suggesting that a new commission is not really needed.

She argues that we know what the options are - "the difficulty is a political one".

She says there should be a commitment from political parties to come together and "get away from the endless bickering".