ITV

We've heard a lot from George Osborne this morning, but what about the man due to stand alongside him today, Labour's former Chancellor Alistair Darling?

He told ITV’s Good Morning Britain earlier this morning: “Everybody has agreed that our economy will take a hit, and the consequence is that we’ll have less money to spend on things like the NHS or education.

“I don’t see why after eight years of austerity, we have to have more and more of it."

Lord Darling said he was “extremely worried” about the “risks of leaving”, adding that the result was “on a knife edge”.

He said similar warnings were made during the 2014 Scottish Independence Referendum and had been wrongly written off at the time.

“The Nationalists used to say the same when I said that oil prices would come down. They used to say ‘they’ll be plenty of money around’. What happened? Oil prices have slumped.”

Sir Philip is asked about the amount of money still being paid to his wife Lady Green (one of the directors) - "If you say so - I don't sign off on the accounts, " he says.

Sir Philip tells MPs his group invested £800m in BHS after he took dividends out of the business in 2004. 

That includes £250m of capital expenditure, a "highly unusual" unsecured loan of £256m and £100m further investment. All this went into the business, he says, before the BHS sale to Dominic Chappell last year.

MPs ask whether Sir Philip accepts that the offshore vehicles of his retail empire makes tracking funds very difficult for this committee and for the Pensions Regulator?

"No I don't," he says.

His companies have paid "substantial" tax and could have been set up completely differently if he had wanted to avoid paying it, says Sir Philip.

Frank Field, the chair of the Work and Pensions committee, who Sir Philip has called for to be removed from the inquiry, is pushing the billionaire on why he chose to settle in Monaco. 

"When did you find out it [Monaco] had tax advantages?" Mr Field says.

"That's not a secret," Sir Philip says.

He explains that he left the country because of a heart scare.

MPs are asking Sir Philip about a number of BHS properties purchased by a company called Carmen Properties and then rented back to the retailer. 

The former BHS owner says there was nothing unusual about the deals, which led to £106m paid back to BHS. "It seemed like a sensible transaction at the time," he said.

"When I went there I had no idea I was ever going to do any more business," replies Sir Philip

Downing Street has tried to play down warnings of a Tory bid to block any emergency post-Brexit Budget, suggesting there would still be a majority of MPs  - including from the Labour benches - prepared to support measures to shore up the public finances.

Well, it seems they might have to think again, as a BBC colleague has received this text from a shadow cabinet minister:

George Osborne has brushed aside warnings from Tory MPs that they would block plans for a Brexit Budget.

The chancellor’s emergency Budget has been met with derision by some in his party, with 57 MPs saying his position would be “untenable” if he cut the NHS or schools.

Mr Osborne told Today presenter Mishal Husain that Conservatives understood action would need to be taken in the face of “huge instability” in the economy following Brexit.

(Image: George Osborne. Credit: Reuters)

Select Committee
Parliament

BHS was very conservatively run, insists Sir Philip.

"You've got to look at the dividends in the context of the cash flow," he goes on, and in that context, he adds: "If you ask anyone in the venture capital business they would ask why it was being so conservatively run."

Select Committee
Parliament

• Frank Field, external (Chair) Labour
• Heidi Allen, external Conservative
• Mhairi Black, external Scottish National Party
• Ms Karen Buck, external Labour
• Neil Coyle, external Labour
• John Glen, external Conservative
• Richard Graham, external Conservative
• Steve McCabe, external Labour
• Craig Mackinlay, external Conservative
• Jeremy Quin, external Conservative
• Craig Williams, external Conservative  

Select Committee
Parliament

• Mr Iain Wright, external (Chair) Labour
• Paul Blomfield, external Labour
• Richard Fuller, external Conservative
• Peter Kyle, external Labour
• Amanda Milling, external Conservative
• Jonathan Reynolds, external Labour (Co-op)
• Amanda Solloway, external Conservative
• Michelle Thomson, external Independent
• Kelly Tolhurst, external Conservative
• Craig Tracey, external Conservative
• Chris White, external Conservative  

Away from matters EU, Sir Philip Green has begun answering questions from MPs about his sale of BHS and the subsequent collapse of the firm.

He begins by saying he'd like to apologise "to all the BHS people", and "nothing is more sad than how this has ended". 

He tells MPs he hopes that together they can find some sensible solutions.

- George Osborne set the agenda first thing with a warning, to be given alongside former Labour Chancellor Alistair Darling, that a brutal emergency Budget would be needed if the UK votes to leave the EU

- He told the Today programme he'd have to slash spending and increase taxes because Brexit would unleash "chaos in the public finances"

- But that sparked a furious reaction from 57 Conservative MPs, who have signed a letter saying the chancellor's position would become "untenable" if he attempted to push through such a Budget

- They described it as "a punishment Budget" designed to scare people into voting for Remain. One, Steve Baker, said he was convinced the chancellor had no intention of actually presenting such a Budget, but was merely using it as "a campaign tactic"

- Elsewhere, Leave supporters are setting out their road map for how they would go about extricating the UK from the EU. They say there should be immediate action to curb the power of European Courts and end free movement of people

- Britain Stronger in Europe said the Leave campaign didn't have a credible plan for the UK's future

One of the aforementioned Conservatives, Iain Duncan Smith, has been speaking to LBC radio. Sky News political correspondent Beth Rigby says he's accused the chancellor of "putting fear and loathing through this campaign".

There are no cabinet attendees on the list of Conservatives MPs threatening to block an emergency Budget by George Osborne.

So that means no Michael Gove, Priti Patel, Chris Grayling or Boris Johnson. But many of the other names we've become familiar with as high-profile Leave campaigners are there - including Iain Duncan Smith, Liam Fox, Bernard Jenkin and Jacob Rees-Mogg.

One unnamed signatory has told the BBC the chancellor’s actions are “the last throws of a desperate man”.

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