Victoria Derbyshire

The level of online and other abuse that people in the Labour Party have endured is "unacceptable", Owen Smith tells Victoria Derbyshire.

"Jeremy should have stepped on this a lot harder. He's let it run," he claims.

Mr Smith says he does not know whether Mr Corbyn has "encouraged" such behaviour but adds that "there are women in the Labour Party who have been horrified" at the level of abuse.

Victoria Derbyshire

Earlier on the Good Morning Britain sofa on ITV, Owen Smith was asked if he'd ever used Viagra, a product developed by his one-time employers, Pfizer.

He comments that "it's been a whirlwind" since he emerged as the single candidate to challenge Jeremy Corbyn on Tuesday night, and jokes:

Victoria Derbyshire

Questioned about his policy positions, Owen Smith says he supports borrowing to build public housing, arguing that "we can't afford not to do it".

He says he is a "conviction politician" whose "political awakening" was during the 1984-1985 miners' strike. He insists he is on the left of the Labour Party but "you need to modernise those positions".

He adds that he backs "saving the steel industry in whatever way possible", including nationalisation, he would look "very seriously" at ending the charitable status of private schools and would give the go ahead to new nuclear power stations.

He is also asked whether he supports women-only carriages on trains but calls that "a silly idea" which harks back to a "Victorian" segregation of the sexes.

Victoria Derbyshire

Owen Smith tells the BBC that he doesn't think Jeremy Corbyn is a leader who can get the Labour Party elected.

He says Mr Corbyn "got Labour to understand our radical roots" but without power "it's all just hot air".

"We need a Labour government in waiting," he argues.

Image source, Getty Images

Former Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg is making a return to front-line politics as the Lib Dem EU spokesman.

Mr Clegg stood down as Lib Dem leader after the party lost 49 out of its 57 MPs at the 2015 general election.

He said he wanted to ensure ministers were "subject to the scrutiny and accountability which voters deserve" following the vote to leave the EU.

The ex-MEP said there was "no exit plan from the government" or "meaningful opposition" from Labour.

Read more.

Theresa May has told European Council president Donald Tusk that Britain is to relinquish its upcoming six-month presidency of the council in 2017,  the Press Association reports.

Today Programme
BBC Radio 4

Norman Smith
Assistant political editor

Labour's Owen Smith has admitted he called a police hotline - rather than 999 as previously reported - while chasing a story on Radio 4's Today programme.

In an interview with ITV's Good Morning Britain he described it as "a mistake" but blamed "a culture of bullying" at the programme while he worked there as a researcher. He declined to identify who he believed was responsible for the bullying.

Mr Smith also said he had suggested to Jeremy Corbyn that he should stand down as leader and become "president" of the Labour Party.

He predicted under Mr Corbyn's leadership the Labour party would split. He also attacked the decision to only hold three head-to-head hustings between Mr Corbyn and himself during the contest.

Asked about his time at Pfizer, Mr Smith was asked whether he had ever used Viagra.

He initally said that was a matter between him an Mrs Smith, before stating categorically that he had not used Viagra.

Norman Smith
Assistant political editor

The Labour leadership challenger Owen Smith has dismissed as "complete nonsense" claims he backed a greater role for the private sector in the NHS.

This follows comments he made while working for the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer in 2005.

Mr Smith insisted he had always supported "a fully publicly funded NHS".

He said the story in this morning's Times, external was "a hatchet job" designed to damage his leadership campaign - and his comments in 2005 were taken at a time when the Labour government was seeking to expand independent provision to clear a backlog of operations.

He says they were also made in response to a report by the left-leaning Insitute for Public Policy Research, commissioned before he worked at Pfizer.

Allies of Mr Smith have gone further and suggested the Corbyn camp may have had a role in the story. One source said there was " an interesting convergence of interests" between the Times and Mr Corbyn's campaign.

One ally of Mr Corbyn is quoted as labelling Owen Smith as "Blair-lite".

Image source, AP

Discussions about the UK leaving the EU must be "frank and open", Theresa May has said as she prepares to embark on her first tour of European capitals.

The prime minister will have a working dinner with Germany's Angela Merkel on Wednesday before talks with France's Francois Hollande on Thursday.

Mrs May said maintaining strong trading links in Europe was vital to ensuring the UK "made a success" of Brexit.

Before the trip, Mrs May will face her first Prime Minister's Questions.

Read more.

Laura Kuenssberg
BBC political editor

In the last two weeks Owen Smith has gone from someone who one MP described as "just playing games" to being the official challenger to Jeremy Corbyn.

Can he pull off a far bigger ask of actually beating him, and demolishing Mr Corbyn's mountain of membership support?

On his side is, finally perhaps, unity among the vast majority of Labour MPs and MEPs.

Angela Eagle dropped out with dignity so that there would be only one candidate. Owen Smith was warm in his tribute to her tonight and dropped heavy hints about campaigning side by side with her in the next two months to smooth the way for senior MPs to work together.

It's understood that he has promised her the position of shadow chancellor if he wins the post. And despite some disquiet inside the party about not fielding a female candidate, in most quarters there is relief and a new focus now there is only one candidate and the race is under way.

Yet if the contest were held tomorrow it's highly likely that Mr Corbyn would win again, setting off an unpredictable chain of events that might lead to the party's end. MPs have withdrawn their support, made it clear that they don't think he is up to the job, former ministers, former party leaders, some of his former supporters have made it abundantly clear they don't think he is up to the job. 

Read more from Laura's blog

Hugh Pym
BBC News Health Editor

Not much has been heard from Simon Stevens since the referendum result. But now the head of NHS England has set out a detailed wish list for the re-configured Conservative government.

In a newspaper article and at a parliamentary hearing, he has given the new occupants of Numbers 10 and 11 Downing Street something to ponder before the start of the parliamentary recess.

Writing in the Daily Telegraph, external he came up with a new version of holding out the begging bowl.

Patients might be surprised to hear that the NHS chief believes that some GP practices and hospital facilities are in "overcrowded and clapped-out buildings in need of a makeover".

With a thinly disguised swipe at ministers he said that to balance the books, billions of pounds of capital investment was being switched into day-to-day running costs. 

He later told MPs on the Commons Health Select Committee that resources for investment were "very constrained" and it was an "open question" whether the demands across the NHS for maintenance funding could be met.  

Read more

House of Lords
Parliament

That's it from the House of Lords for today - it sits again tomorrow at 15.00 BST when the government faces questions on: 

• Southern Rail and disabled passengers 
• delays in payments from the Single Farm Payment Scheme
• UK universities and their students and staff from EU member states
• threatened demolition of the Calais Jungle camp.

We have got the first response from Team Corbyn to this evening's developments and the news he will face Owen Smith, not Angela Eagle, in a leadership contest. 

A spokesman for the Labour leader said:

House of Commons
Parliament

MPs have concluded their business for the day. 

They will return at 11.30 BST on Wednesday ahead of Theresa May's first Prime Minister's questions.

House of Commons
Parliament

Earlier on Tuesday, MPs voted to support the Higher Education Bill at second reading by 294 votes to 258.

The bill will now pass to committee stage where it will receive detailed line-by-line scrutiny away from the main chamber.

The programme motion (which timetables the bills progress through the house), the Ways and Means motion (which allows taxes or other charges being made on the public) and the Money resolution (which allows the spending public money) were all passed without a vote.

Outlining the government's plans during the debate, Higher Education Minister Jo Johnson said the world has "changed massively" since the last substantial higher education changes in 1992 and current legislation was "not fit for purpose".

We now live in "an era of mass higher education which is no longer limited to academic elites" he told MPs.

Widening the number of institutions that can provide degrees will "drive up innovation, diversity, quality and capacity" he said.

"We must do more to ensure young people from all backgrounds are given opportunities," he argued. "Our reforms support this ambition."