The Daily Politics

Ken Livingstone has defended Jeremy Corbyn's leadership of the Labour Party, saying it had "to come to terms with Jeremy, not the other way around". 

Speaking to the Daily Politics on BBC 2, the former London mayor said:

He said the party was "completely out of kilter" with the membership because local parties "weren't allowed to choose the candidates they wanted" under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown's leaderships.

Norman Smith
Assistant political editor

Image source, PA

The Treasury is to publish "a comprehensive analysis" of the costs and benefits of Britian's EU membership.

The document will set out what the Treasury regards as the pros and cons of leaving or remaining in the EU.

Chancellor George Osborne said it would be a "serious, sober and principled assessment of the facts".

The government has come under attack over some of its recent documents on the EU. The latest was described by critics as "a dodgy dossier from Project fear".

Mr Osborne insisted he was not trying to scare voters but to set out the "question marks and risks" of leaving the EU. He also denied asking the G20 to issue a statement warning of an economic shock of leaving the EU.

He told MPs Brexit would be "a long, costly, messy divorce".

Image source, EPA

Former EU trade commissioner Lord Mandelson has praised German Chancellor Angela Merkel's response to the migration and refugee crisis.

There has been growing critcism of Ms Merkel's "open door" policy of allowing migrants in to Germany.

But Lord Mandelson, a Labour peer, said she had exercised "moral responsibility".

Lord Mandelson also predicted that the UK would have to take in more than the planned 20,000 Syrian refugees over the next five years.

He called for safe and legal routes for refugees to come to Europe and tighter policing of the EU's external borders, saying the solution was not to throw up more fences and walls.

Labour has welcomed the news that Freedom of Information requests - used by campaigners and journalists to ask questions of public bodies - are to remain free of charge.

Deputy leader Tom Watson said it was a "remarkable climbdown" by the government "in the face of sustained opposition from Labour, the SNP, the Liberal Democrats, and the media".

David Anderson describes his Cold War-style recruitment to become the government's independent reviewer of terrorism when he spoke to Jo Coburn on Daily Politics.

House of Commons
Parliament

Conservative MP John Baron complains that cuts in funding have meant the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) has suffered from a "lack of analytical skill and expertise that has been very costly to this country".

He tells MPs that "when it came to the Arab Spring we had so few Arabists in the FCO we had to call them out of retirement".

"When it came to annexation of the Crimea but we did have not one Crimeanologist in the FCO," he says; which he argues contributed to a "unconvincing response" to the crisis. 

House of Commons
Parliament

Debate breaks down momentarily for a some procedural wrangling.

SNP MP Pete Wishart opens his speech by complaining that the debate is only on "one piece of estimates" rather than "every single piece of departmental spending". 

Mr Wishart tells MPs that 200 years ago every single piece of governmental spending needed to be approved by the House of Commons, but parliament has "abrogated its responsibility" - a state of affairs he calls "simply and utterly unsustainable".

Deputy Speaker Natascha Engel tries to intervene but Conservative MP Sir Edward Leigh raises a series of point of order asking why MPs are not allowed to debate "estimates on estimates day".

Ms Engel replies this is a "particular estimates day, not estimates day" and encourages MPs to speak to the Procedure Committee if they'd like to see a change.

Neither Sir Edward or Mr Wishart are willing to back down, and Ms Engel rules them "out of order" and moves on to the next speaker.

House of Commons
Parliament

Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee Crispin Blunt complains that there is a bias in the Foreign Office's "focus" on investment that can be written off as Official Development Assistance (ODA).

Mr Blunt complains that this is "skewing the department's expenditure against funds that are not available for ODA spending, regardless of where our foreign policy interests lie".

ODA funding counts towards the government's commitment to spend 0.7% of its GDP on International Development.

House of Commons
Parliament

Opening the debate, Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Crispin Blunt describes the Foreign Office as a "machine stretched to the limit".

This is why he says he is "delighted" the recommendation of his report , externalwere implemented in the Autumn Statement.

But he calls for increased investment in diplomatic knowledge as "key posts are being left unfilled because staff of the necessary calibre were needed elsewhere".

East Antrim MP Sammy Wilson denies that he agreed with the comment 'Get the ethnics out'.

House of Commons
Parliament

The House of Commons sets aside three 'estimates days' each year on which to consider the estimates of public spending by government departments. 

The topic of debate on these days is chosen by the Liaison Committee. 

Usually the subject of a recent report by a departmental select committee is chosen, which in turn relates to a particular estimate.  

House of Commons
Parliament

Today's estimates day debate is based on the report of the Foreign Affairs Committee, external which called for the Foreign Office's budget to be protected in the 2015 Spending Review, with a view to increasing funds available to support the diplomatic work "on which the country's security and prosperity depend".

In the Autumn Statement, George Osborne announced that the overseas aid budget to increase to £16.3bn by 2020, while the Foreign Office budget would be protected in real terms.

House of Lords
Parliament

Peers will sit at 2:30pm, and begin with questions on whiplash injury victims, the legal issues surrounding British troops being charged with war crimes, home ownership in London, and the Calais ‘Jungle’ Camp.

The main business of the day will be the committee stage of the Housing and Planning Bill.

There will also be a short debate on the documentation of refugees at the EU border.

House of Commons
Parliament

Mark Williams Ten Minute Rule Bill is passed unopposed. But it's unlikely to become law, without government support and parliamentary time.

MPs now move to the first of today's Estimate Day debates - on the Foreign Office and the 2015 Spending Review.

House of Commons
Parliament

MPs now move to Mark Williams' Ten Minute Rule Bill - the Devolution (Bank Holidays) (Wales) Bill. 

As you may have guessed, the bill devolves the power to determine when bank holidays take place in Wales to the Welsh Assembly.

Mark Williams, the deputy leader of the Welsh Lib Dems, hopes the new law will allow the Welsh government to create a new bank holiday for St David's Day.

Mr Williams argues: "It has been almost a decade since Scotland made St Andrew's Day a public holiday, and it is time that Wales was given the same power.

"It should be within the spirit of the devolution settlement that Wales, like Scotland and Northern Ireland, has the same powers to determine these matters."

House of Commons
Parliament

Labour's Deputy Leader Tom Watson raises a point of order to ask if there will be a statement on the "very unusual behaviour" of the government "scrapping their own commission" into the Freedom of Information Act.

John Bercow says he has had "no such indication" but says "other parliamentary devices are available" for MPs who want to hear a government statement.

House of Commons
Parliament

Conservative MP Sir Edward Leigh raises a point of order to complain that Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond did not respond to today's urgent question. 

Sir Edward says "we must establish a convention that when an urgent question is asked, unless it is on a very specific brief, the secretary of state should be here".

Speaker Jon Bercow says it is "for the government to decide whom to field" but adds that he has heard similar complaints form other senior MPs, and there are "suggestions that frequency with which senior ministers appear is declining".

House of Commons
Parliament

Labour's Alison McGovern asks for an update on the timetable that the "international community is working towards".

She says the Syrian people "must know we see what is happening to them".

Foreign Office Minister Tobias Ellwood says that the "18 month transition programme" was established at the Vienna talks, and is not the responsibility of the government.

But he adds that the timetable was agreed "prior to the bombings by Russia that led to the January peace talks to fail".

House of Commons
Parliament

Foreign Office Minister Tobias Ellwood announces over 1,300 civilians have been "killed either by Russia or by Russia-supported air strikes" and over 1,800 injured.

He adds that the RAF has not been involved in any civilian deaths.