Image source, PA

Former Labour leader Neil Kinnock has questioned whether Jeremy Corbyn can win power and said he could face calls to stand down if he does not "make advances" with the public.

Lord Kinnock said Mr Corbyn's task was to "win power for the party" rather than to "secure power in the party".

While Mr Corbyn should have "space" to lead, he said he must pass clear tests.

And he suggested that if Mr Corbyn failed to connect with the electorate, "he may come to his own conclusions".

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The government has been defeated in the Lords over plans to cut the benefits of people with illness and disabilities.

Ministers want to cut Employment Support Allowance by £30 a week to spur some new claimants to return to work.

But Labour, Lib Dem and independent peers joined forces to block the move, arguing it would make it harder for those affected to pay for the support that might allow them to find work.

The government may try to overturn it at a later date in the Commons.

Ministers lost the vote on an amendment to the Welfare Reform and Work Bill, external by 283 votes to 198, a majority of 85.

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Image source, Getty Images

The European Competition Commissioner Magrethe Vestager 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.

The development comes as the row over Google's tax affairs in the UK and elsewhere intensifies.

Meanwhile, Google has written to the Financial Times defending its £130m deal, saying it complies with the law.

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Today Programme
BBC Radio 4

Margaret Hodge says the key to beating tax avoidance is greater transparency - the companies should "open up the negotiations" they have had with HM Revenue and Customs.

Today Programme
BBC Radio 4

Former public accounts committee chairman Dame Margaret Hodge is on Today now talking Google - she said the EU authorities should investigate tax avoidance by multinationals such as Amazon and Google. 

Image source, AFP

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.

The UK will take 20,000 refugees from Syria by 2020 - but campaigners want 3,000 children to be taken from Europe.

Save the Children said thousands of children needed "urgent protection".

The government said £10m would be given to help vulnerable refugee minors in Europe.

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Today Programme
BBC Radio 4

Hello and welcome to our rolling coverage of political developments on Thursday - top of the agenda this morning are the continuing questions over Google's tax payments, plus the UK's plans to take in some unaccompanied child refugees from camps in countries neighbouring Syria.

That's all for our live coverage today. Please join us tomorrow when David Cameron will be in Aberdeen to reassure a worried oil and gas industry that the plunging oil price won't permanently undermine its fortunes. Expect more developments on the big political stories of the moment, including the Google tax row, the PM's EU renegotiations and the Europe migrant crisis.

House of Lords
Parliament

The government has been defeated in the House of Lords this evening over plans to cut the benefits of people with illness and disabilities. 

Ministers want to reduce Employment Support Allowance by £30 a week to spur some new claimants to return to work. 

But Labour, Lib Dem and independent peers joined forces to block the move, arguing it would make it harder for those affected to pay for the support that might allow them to find work. 

The government may try to overturn it at a later date in the Commons. 

Ministers lost the vote on an amendment to the Welfare Reform and Work Bill by 283 votes to 198, a majority of 85. 

The vote was welcomed by disability campaigners, who say there is "deep unease" about the cuts to ESA and other benefits.

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A look at the political stories that have been making the news so far today:

• David Cameron defended the deal UK authorities have struck with Google over tax saying the Conservatives have done more than any other government. He was challenged over the arrangement by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn at PMQs
• The PM is facing Labour calls to apologise for calling refugees at a camp in Calais "a bunch of migrants" during the leaders' exchanges in the Commons
• Also during the session, Mr Cameron announced that a memorial to the victims of the Holocaust will be erected in Victoria Tower Gardens beside Parliament
• The Court of Appeal ruled that the so-called bedroom tax discriminates against a domestic violence victim and the family of a disabled teenager
• Former Labour leader Neil Kinnock has questioned whether Jeremy Corbyn can win power and said he could face calls to stand down if he does not "make advances" with the public
• Net migration could fall by about 100,000 a year if the UK leaves the EU and introduces work permits for EU citizens, pressure group Migration Watch has said
• George Galloway has won permission to sue Google over a speech posted online by a loyalist campaigner in Belfast
• Britain's first new nuclear power plant in decades could be delayed amid reports an EDF board meeting to decide whether to invest in Hinkley Point Power Station has been postponed

This is what the French finance minister, Michael Sapin, has had to say about the amount of tax Google is paying across the channel. Speaking as France, the UK and 29 other countries agreed a tax information sharing deal in Paris, Mr Sapin said the French authorities wanted a continuous, rather than a one-off, agreement with the internet search giant.  

BBC News Channel

Conservative MP Mark Garnier, a member of the Treasury Select Committee, says he accepts the Google tax deal looks "fishy" but notes that HMRC spent six years investigating the company's tax returns and "sometimes we do have to accept that HMRC have got it right".

He also tells BBC News the deal was "quite rightly" done in secrecy, saying that's "a right given to everyone in the country".

But he points out that the tax regime in question dates back to 2005, when Labour was in power .

BBC News Channel

Sir Vince Cable, the former Liberal Democrat business secretary, says Chancellor George Osborne has "made a complete fool of himself" by announcing the Google tax deal as a success. "It's a very poor and weak deal," he tells BBC News.

Sir Vince says he thinks the government has been very "naive" and accepted "at face value analysis which is almost certainly very, very  generous to the company".

BBC Radio 4

Paul Lewis, from Radio 4's Money Box programme, explains the impact of the government's defeat in the courts, on BBC Radio 4's PM programme.

More on the former Acting Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury Shabana Mahmood's election to Labour’s Governing body the NEC

The National Executive Committee is the ruling body of the Labour Party. Its membership of 32 comes from the Trade Unions, Parliament and local constituencies. The election took place today following the removal of Steve Rotherham, Jeremy Corbyn’s PPS, by the parliamentary party last week.

Today’s changes mean the NEC remains finely balanced with two much more substantial changes coming down the track; the election of the NEC Young Labour rep in February and the national CLP elections in June. These national elections will be a key test for Jeremy Corbyn’s support within the party membership as seven spots on the governing body will be up for grabs.

Former acting shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, Shabana Mahmood, has been elected to Labour’s ruling body, the National Executive Committee.

The Birmingham Ladywood MP refused to serve in Jeremy Corbyn’s cabinet following his election in September 2015 and helped run Yvette Coopers’ leadership campaign.

Jonathan Ashworth, a shadow cabinet minister without portfolio, congratulated her on her election in a tweet, external, saying: