House of Commons
Parliament

Conservative Mark Pritchard asks if Britain leaving the EU would ultimately mean EU defence policy would "compete rather than compliment Nato".

Defence Secretary Michael Fallon replies that "the fracturing of the alliance or the union" would be bad for the UK's national security

House of Lords
Parliament

The Bishop of Durham, Rt Rev Paul Butler, who had tabled the amendment which led to the government's defeat, says he is "delighted that the government has listened to arguments" and agreed to make a statutory provision for the publication of income levels in the poorest families.

"The evidence is clear: income poverty does impact cognitive development, school achievement, and emotional and development," he tells peers.

He says the publication of these figures means that the impact of the bill, which he says "will lead to more people becoming poor", can be better monitored.

Brian Taylor
BBC Scotland Political Editor

An intriguing argument advanced earlier by Nicola Sturgeon anent membership of the EU. 

Ms Sturgeon opened, for the avoidance of doubt, with a first principle.

She confirmed to her London audience that she remained an advocate of Scottish independence. She repeated, further, that Brexit without Scottish consent might well lead to pressure for a second independence referendum.

And so we have a constructed syllogism. Brexit - Scotland = indyref2. Hence, Ms Sturgeon is of course a supporter of Brexit? QED? Right? Fundamentally wrong?

Indeed, Mr Sturgeon went so far as to say: "I do want Scotland to be independent but I don't want Scotland to become independent because the UK chooses to leave the European Union."

House of Lords
Parliament

Setting out the government's case, Work and Pensions Minister Lord Freud tells peers that plans to force ministers to report annually on income levels in the poorest families, spearheaded by the Bishop of Durham the Rt Rev Paul Butler, is the "wrong approach to tackling poverty".

Focusing solely on income levels as a measure of poverty had led to "billions of pounds being invested with little to no impact on the lives of those affected by poverty", Lord Freud argues.

He announces that despite these reservations, the government is announcing today they will put in the bill a guarantee to publish figures on income levels in the poorest families "every year".

BBC Radio 4

Image source, PA

Former Labour leader Neil Kinnock has issued a stark warning to Jeremy Corbyn that if he continues to oppose the renewal of the Trident missile system, Labour will lose the next election.

In an interview for BBC Radio 4's Analysis programme, Lord Kinnock said that to have any chance of winning, Mr Corbyn will have to stick with the present policy of multilateral nuclear disarmament.

"No party can win a national United Kingdom election if it sustains a stance which means unilateral nuclear disarmament," he said.

The former cabinet minister Peter Mandelson also claimed that for Labour to switch back to a unilateral policy would be electoral suicide.

The legal duty of councils in England to ensure that every child has a school place could soon become undeliverable, local authorities have warned.

With a population bulge about to hit secondary schools, councils want powers to open new maintained schools and to compel academies to expand.

Thousands of children are due to hear on Tuesday which secondary school they will attend from September.

However the government says the warning amounts to "scaremongering". Read more.

House of Lords
Parliament

Founder of Migration Watch, and crossbench peer, Lord Green of Deddington tells peers that based the migration trends announced, the most recent quarterly statistic means that the UK's population will increase by 500,000 every year  - 75% of which will come from immigration .

Lord Green goes on to say that "this increase - the equivalent to a city the size of Newcastle, Bristol or Edinburgh - will continue until something is done to reduce levels of immigration".

Home Office Minister Lord Bates replies that these figures "assume no action is taken" on immigration.

Lord Bates tells peers the government "has been working hard to ensure that we address some of the pull factors that cause people to come here, and increase the discomfort of those people in this country illegally".

The Daily Politics

UKIP's David Coburn quotes a newspaper poll that found 60% of Scottish voters want to leave the EU, as he claimed his nation was "a lot more Eurosceptic that everyone wants to make out." 

And the SNP's Stephen Gethins says "I think we'll take it one referendum at a time" when he was asked about a possible second vote on Scottish independence, if Scotland wanted to stay in the EU but the rest of the UK voted to leave.  

There was a brief moment of drama in the auditorium where the PM was speaking earlier in Ipswich. He paused and walked to the other end of the hall to see what was happening. It appears that a member of the audience had collapsed and was being attended to. After a minute or so to check that they were OK, the prime minister resumed his Q&A session, saying he hoped he had done the right thing.

Reality Check

Image source, AFP

In her speech earlier, Nicola Sturgeon said: “European decisions helped us to reduce sulphur dioxide emissions by almost nine tenths in the last four decades. Nitrogen oxide levels have decreased by two thirds in Scotland since 1990… Joint action in this area has almost certainly, without a word of exaggeration, saved tens of thousands of lives.”

It’s true that emissions have fallen dramatically. Sulphur dioxide emissions across the UK are down by 95% since 1970 (Source: Defra). And in Scotland, emissions of nitrogen oxides had fallen to 33% of their 1990 level by 2013 (Source: National Atmospheric Emissions Inventory).

It’s also true that the European Union has been at the forefront of setting international targets to lower emissions through a series of measures including the National Emissions Ceiling Directive which was agreed in 2001.

It could be argued that emissions would have fallen anyway without the intervention of the EU. Many of the cuts have been made possible by technology change and there is a UN Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution (CLRTAP) which covers EU and non-EU states.

But it’s the EU that has set the legal framework for the UK’s emission targets, and the EU also sets environmental standards for goods which have been used to drive emissions down.

UKIP's David Coburn quotes a newspaper poll that found 60% of Scottish voters want to leave the EU, as he claimed his nation was "a lot more Eurosceptic that everyone wants to make out."

And the SNP's Stephen Gethins says "I think we'll take it one referendum at a time" when he was asked about a possible second vote on Scottish independence, if Scotland wanted to stay in the EU but the rest of the UK voted to leave.

House of Commons
Parliament

Labour shadow minister Kate Hollern asks why the MOD does not procure more steel from UK suppliers.

Philip Dunne says that UK steel makes a significant contribution to Britain's defence needs, and that guidance is in place to ensure this remains the case.

House of Lords
Parliament

Asking her question, Baroness Cox calls the actions of the Sudanese government a "de-facto genocide."

Not for the first time, external, the crossbench peer calls on the government to use "its influence within the United Nations" to extend impose targeted sanctions on the Sudanese government.

International Development Minister Baroness Verma replies that, while sanctions can work "in the right circumstances", the government judge that "the best way forward" is to support the ongoing peace process.

House of Commons
Parliament

The SNP's Brendan O'Hara asks how effective the RAF Brimstone missile has been in the campaign against the so-called Islamic State.

The Brimstone missile was one of the unique capabilities possessed by the RAF that was cited by the government when it was making the case for extending air strikes to Syria in December last year.

Secretary of State  Michael Fallon says that Brimstone is one of many capabilities the RAF has. He adds that the RAF has flown 2,100 combat missions over Islamic State territory.

The Sudan government is fighting rebels in South Kordofan and Blue Nile.

These areas were relatively calm after the 2005 deal with southern Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) rebels, which ultimately led to South Sudan's 2011 secession.

However, fighters in South Kordofan and Blue Nile, known as SPLM-North, were left north of the border. In the lead-up to the split, conflict broke out again in these areas.

More than quarter of a million people have now fled into neighbouring South Sudan and Ethiopia to escape fighting and aerial bombardments that many say are targeting civilians.

Though a peace deal has been signed between President Salva Kiir and Vice President Riek Machar, the main opposition leader, seems to be on the verge of implementation, the Daily Beast has reported, external that a UN refugee camp in South Sudan was burned to the ground by soldiers from the government's Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA).

House of Commons
Parliament

Conservative MP Rehman Chishti begins the week in the Commons by asking what progress is being made in the campaign against the so-called Islamic State, and asks what help Arab countries could lend.

Defence Secretary Michael Fallon says he welcomes the contribution made by Gulf states when fighting IS.

House of Lords
Parliament

Over in the House of Lords, peers are looking again at the Welfare Reform and Work Bill after their amendments to the bill were defeated in the House of Commons last week.

The Scotland Bill will also be debated, as peers consider the bill, which aims to implement the vow made to the people of Scotland by the leading parties before the Scottish referendum at report stage.

Home Office Minister Lord Bates will repeat the statement on child refugees in Calais, allowing peers to have their say on the issue.

But before all this the day begins at 2.30pm with oral questions. Today, they're on: civilians in the Blue Nile are of Sudan, the most recent quarterly migration statistics, black and minority ethnic mental health patients and reopened rail lines.