Westminster Hall

In a crowded session, MPs in Westminster Hall are debating an e-petition relating to transitional state pension arrangements for women born in the 1950s.

Millions of women born in the 1950s say they weren't given enough notice that the state retirement age was rising. 

Under the 1995 Pensions Act, the government decided that the pension ages of both men and women would be equalised by 2020. Previously, women retired at 60, while men retired at 65.

In 2011, state pension ages were raised at an even faster rate.

Some of those born between April 1951 and 1960 will not qualify for a pension until the age of 66.

Campaigners belonging to Women Against State Pension Inequality (WASPI) say some women had very little notice that they would not get a pension at 60.

They are calling for "transitional arrangements" for those affected.

Pensions Minister Baroness Altmann has insisted that letters sent to women informing them of changes to their state pension age were clear.  

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The Deputy First Minister of the Northern Ireland Assembly, Martin McGuinness, says he shares others' concerns about the possibility of the EU referendum being held in June. There has been speculation that the vote will be held on 23 June. Sinn Fein's Mr McGuinness says with elections to the Assembly being held in May, there would not be enough time for "a proper debate" on Britain's EU membership. He wants the Westminster government to talk to the devolved administrations in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland about the timing of the vote. 

The week's agenda for this plenary session is approved.

Next, MEPs will be joined by European Central Bank (ECB) President Mario Draghi to debate a report, external on the Bank’s activities during 2014.

The year saw the ECB attempt to cope with sluggish economic growth and very low interest rates.

It also saw the setting up of the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) – the EU’s body for monitoring the stability of large banks in the Eurozone.

MEPs will vote on a non-binding motion later this month on what role they think the ECB should play in regulating the banking sector and overseeing Eurozone country bailouts. 

Image source, AFP/Getty Images

House of Commons
Parliament

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MPs move on to the second reading of the Bank of England and Financial Services Bill.

Financial Secretary to the Treasury Harriett Baldwin says the bill has three main aims: to increase the transparency of the Bank of England, "build on action to drive up standards in financial services" and create and regulate a secondary market in annuities.

The bill allows the National Audit Office access to the Bank of England for the first time, to assess value for money. 

The bill has already cleared all stages in the House of Lords.

House of Lords
Parliament

Peers continue debating a power in the bill which introduces an offence of driving a vehicle when unlawfully in the UK.

Labour has introduced an amendment which states that a person will not have committed the offence if they had "reasonable belief" that he or she had a legal right to remain in the UK and "acted in good faith".

Speaking in support of the amendment, Lord Rosser argues a defence for those prosecuted under the new offences should be included in the legislation. 

Lord Bates says he will reflect further on the points raised before the bill returns at report stage. 

Former Labour foreign secretary David Miliband is calling for the international community to invest in the economies of countries neighbouring Syria to help refugees find work. Mr Miliband, who is head of the International Rescue Committee, external, said jobs should be created in Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon.

Labour MP for Walthamstow Stella Creasy asks what the government is doing to help trusts like Barts Trust to renegotiate Private Finance Initiative deals to "tackle the legal loan-sharks of the public sector". 

Ben Gummer says it's "brave" for a Labour MP to attempt to attack the government on PFI, given the previous Labour government's record. He adds that he's had "a number of meetings" with Barts, who are in a "difficult" situation. He says he wants to see a "transformation" of the trust.

House of Lords
Parliament

Lib Dem Lord Paddick doesn't believe the minister has answered peers' concerns.

He notes that current police searches often appear to be race-based and says the minister has not given any assurance that things will be different under the new powers proposed in the bill.

However he is grateful to the minister for agreeing to meet concerned peers and withdraws his amendments. 

House of Commons
Parliament

SNP Health spokesperson Philippa Whitford asks why NICE (the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence) aren't being allowed to finish their work on "safe" nursing levels in hospitals, which began in the wake of the Mid Staffordshire NHS scandal.

Minister Ben Gummer says that during the process "what became clear" was a "need to look more broadly at the team staffing levels, not just nurses". 

He says the NHS will soon produce a "broader and more complex" view of staffing levels, which will have to be signed off by NICE.

House of Commons
Parliament

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More on that urgent question in the Commons from Labour's Heidi Alexander - the shadow health secretary - about NHS finances. She accused the government of being in denial about the financial problems faced by the NHS, saying hospitals were "buckling under the strain".

Replying for the government, Health Minister Ben Gummer said the NHS was performing more procedures and "doing more for the people of this country since any time since it was formed". The drive now was about making quality and efficiency go hand in hand, he added. 

You can read more about the debate on Westminster Live.

The Commons Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee is not willing to engage in a blame game about who was responsible for the demise of charity Kids Company, committee chairman Bernard Jenkin has said.

"It's no point in finding blame. What we want to know is why this accident occurred and what lessons can be learned from it.

"That’s not about finding blame, that’s about learning the lessons," he told the Daily Politics.

He was speaking after the committee published its report into the charity, which it said collapsed as a result of an "extraordinary catalogue of failures".

Daily Politics reporter Ellie Price took to the streets to see if she could give away political biographies for free.

The Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee is not willing to engage in a blame game over charity Kids Company's collapse, MP Bernard Jenkin says.

House of Commons
Parliament

Labour's shadow health secretary Heidi Alexander asks if the minister will accept that it is "impossible" for some hospitals to provide safe care and that the proposed £22bn of efficiency savings will actually come from cutting staff numbers and services.

Health Minister Ben Gummer says the "performance of the NHS has improved beyond measure". He cites statistics that, he says, show the NHS is "doing more for the people of this country than at any time since its foundation". 

He says the only people in denial are the Labour Party.

He asks Heidi Alexander to back the government's push for "efficiency savings" in the NHS so that more money can be spent on doctors.

House of Lords
Parliament

Labour spokesman Lord Rosser notes that the National Black Police Federation has argued that the clauses in the legislation will undermine good relationships between police and the community.

He further notes that black and ethnic minority drivers are twice as likely to be stopped than white drivers.

He believes that the new police powers will have an adverse impact on the role of the police, community relations and racial harmony.

Image source, Reuters

Downing Street has rejected claims from some leading economists that the UK's response to the Syrian refugee crisis is "seriously inadequate". 

A total of 123 economic experts who have worked in the UK have signed an open letter to the prime minister which says the current government policy is "morally unacceptable" and the offer to take in 20,000 Syrians over five years is "too low, too slow and too narrow".  

Among the signatories are the former Cabinet Office chief economist Jonathan Portes, ex-World Trade Organisation director-general Peter Sutherland and former United Nations deputy secretary-general Lord Malloch-Brown, a minister under Gordon Brown. 

The letter said Syrian refugees could make a contribution to the UK economy, as Ugandan Asians had done: 

David Cameron's official spokeswoman rejected the claims, saying Britain had "led the way" in the response to the humanitarian crisis, by giving more than £1bn in aid and in the commitment it had made to take in refugees. She said: