Sir Jeremy Heywood, the head of the civil service, is being questioned by MPs about the rules under which ministers can campaign for either side in the EU referendum campaign.

He tells the committee:

Asked to provide a specific example, Sir Jeremy says if a minister campaigning for an EU exit were to commission a brief to find some facts that would stand up that position "that would be ruled out by the guidance".  

Lord Mandelson tells BBC deputy political editor James Landale ministers backing an EU exit are lucky not to have been fired.

House of Commons
Parliament

Conservative MP, and member of the Home Affairs Committee, James Berry says he is wary of opening to the consultation process on the new Police Funding Formula too wide.

He argues that it will be very difficult to come to an agreed upon Police Funding Formula "without acrimony unless you have the funds to fund every police force at the level of the best funded". 

He also argues against opening up the figures the formula will be based on as "it may be difficult obtain a balanced response from people who stand to lose out".

The government have said it would seek the views of PCCs and the National Police Chiefs Council before proceeding with the changes to the funding formula.

Lord Mandelson tells BBC deputy political editor James Landale the EU debate should not be focusing on ministers being denied documents relating to the referendum, as people are "not interested".

For most ministers who choose to oppose the government "the only paper they would expect to receive is their P45", the Labour peer says.

Select Committee
Parliament

You very helpfully circulated a Q&A sheet, but it was not published at the time you published your guidance letter, Conservative Cheryl Gillan notes.

"Why was it not published," she asks, saying that in the "interests of openness and transparency, it would have been useful".

"The Q&A is a living document that we update over time," Sir Jeremy says in response.

"Normal experience is that there is a lot of teething problems, but that needs refining over time."

BBC Politics

As one former Whitehall colleague puts it, he is "quite possibly the most important person in the country that nobody has ever heard of".

Nobody, that is, apart from all the ministers and prime ministers - from Norman Lamont to Tony Blair, Gordon Brown to David Cameron - who seem to have found Jeremy Heywood indispensable.

Read more.

Image source, Rex Features

Select Committee
Parliament

"Could you outline the steps that brought you to issue this guidance?" asks committee chair Bernard Jenkin.

We looked at the 1975 referendum guidance, we looked at the Scottish referendum guidance and we talked to the prime minister, explains Sir Jeremy Heywood.

"That produced the guidance.

"The Civil Service's job under the constitution is to support the government of the day in making its position clear, whilst supporting ministers dissenting from that position on all other aspects of government business," he explains.

Before November's delay the government had launched a consultation, external on plans to change the formula, prompting six police and crime commissioners (PCCs) to threaten the Home Office with legal action.

They argued the proposals were "unjustified and deeply flawed" and would have left 31 of the 42 forces worse off than expected.

The government have announced it would now seek the views of PCCs and the National Police Chiefs Council before proceeding with the changes.  

House of Commons
Parliament

Conservative MP Richard Drax pays tribute to his local police force, the Dorset Police, who, he says, have "languished at the bottom of the police funding table".

The current funding model is "the worst of all possible worlds" for the police force, he tells MPs, as it "fails to take into account" any of the challenges faced by Dorset - particularity as it is a "seaside county".

Select Committee
Parliament

Labour's shadow work and pensions secretary Owen Smith has had this to say about the review of the state pension age:

The former director general of the CBI, John Cridland, has been appointed by the government to head a review of the state pension age, which will report back by May 2017.

The move was announced in a written statement to Parliament:

It added that the review will be "focused on the longer term" and would not affect plans to raise the state pension age to 67 for both sexes by 2028.

Image source, Getty Images

David Cameron has suggested the next James Bond could be a Welshman - and proposed Welsh Secretary Stephen Crabb to take on the leading role.

At a Downing Street reception to celebrate St David's Day, Mr Cameron suggested his young, bearded minister - who was present - bore a resemblance to Hollywood actor Russell Crowe, and added:

House of Commons
Parliament

Chair of the Home affairs Committee Keith Vaz opens the debate asking when the review his committee has been calling for is going to start.

The government's response to his committee's report "is now 19 days late" he tells MPs.

While the government delays, police forces are being forced to use a funding formula "a decade old, not based on the latest census data, is impossible for forces to calculate and does not take in to account the requirements of modern police work", Mr Vaz argues.

Select Committee
Parliament

Bernard Jenkin, external (Chair) Conservative

Ronnie Cowan, external Scottish National Party 

Oliver Dowden, external Conservative

Paul Flynn, external Labour

Cheryl Gillan, external Conservative

Kate Hoey, external Labour

Kelvin Hopkins, external Labour

David Jones, external Conservative

Gerald Jones, external Labour

Tom Tugendhat, external Conservative

Andrew Turner, external Conservative  

Select Committee
Parliament

Members of the committee will shortly take evidence on the EU referendum.

MPs will question the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Jeremy Heywood.

The session will look at the recently published guidance provided to civil servants and special advisers on their role in the referendum and the support they can provide to ministers.

The amount of money each police force receives from the government is based on a funding formula, which assesses population size, social and economic factors, crime rates and other data.

A statistical error in October led some forces to wrongly assume they would be losing money for 2016-17, while others thought their budgets were to increase.

In November, the government delayed proposed changes to the way the money is allocated after acknowledging its plans had been based on flawed calculations.

It admitted the wrong set of figures had been used to decide deprivation levels within each police area.

House of Commons
Parliament

MPs now turn to the last of today's Estimates day debates on the reform of the police funding formula - the subject of this report from the Home Affairs Committee, external, which concluded that the current system is "widely recognised as being 'not fit for purpose'".  

Danny Shaw
BBC Home Affairs Correspondent

When the draft legislation was published last November, police were concerned about a rather large gap. 

Although they would have had powers to find out if a suspect was visiting illegal websites, downloading abuse images or accessing terrorist material, they wouldn't get details of other online activity which might be relevant to their investigation. 

So, a travel website a drug trafficker books tickets on would have been out of bounds, as would a banking website used by a fraudster to transfer money. 

The new Bill attempts to plug those gaps. 

But in doing so it's left a far broader range of internet services which the law enforcement and intelligence world will be able to see than was the case before. 

Ellie Price
Daily and Sunday Politics reporter

You don’t even need to use their surnames: Ken and Boris. In 16 years there have only been two London mayors.

But how much do you remember of when the role of London Mayor was created? 

Delving through the archive has been great fun. And Tony Blair certainly seemed to have a sense of humour.