UKIP MEP Steven Woolfe is in a "serious" condition in hospital "following an altercation that took place at a meeting of Ukip MEPs this morning" in Strasbourg, Nigel Farage has said. 

Alex Forsyth
Political correspondent

Today Programme
BBC Radio 4

Home Secretary Amber Rudd said on Wednesday that British firms should employ more British citizens, referring to one sofa manufacturer which "didn't even consider training locally" and chose to recruit outside the UK.Matt O'Flynn, the managing director of Hastings furniture firm Collins and Hayes, tells Today presenter Mishal Husain that Ms Rudd visited the factory in 2015 and she could have been referring to his company. He says her comments are "very disappointing".  

Press Association

UKIP leadership favourite Steven Woolfe reportedly collapsed during a session at the European Parliament.

The MEP is said to have been taken ill after walking out of a vote at the parliament in Strasbourg.

Suzanne Evans, UKIP's former deputy chair who is said to be considering her own leadership bid, tweeted:

Raheem Kassam, who is also running to be Ukip leader, tweeted:

Follow in more detail on the Holyrood live page.

A UKIP spokesman has confirmed MEP Steven Woolfe has been taken ill in Strasbourg and has been taken to hospital for tests.

Following the government's ruling that horizontal fracking will go ahead in the UK shale gas industry, a spokesman for the Department of Communities and Local Government said:

You can read the decision and access the full report here., external

Plans to give more power to the assembly could still result in a "roll-back" of devolution, an assembly committee has claimed.

The Wales Bill, currently passing through Parliament, was revised earlier this year amid concern it could dilute the power of AMs to make laws.

But the cross-party constitutional and legislative affairs committee said the bill remains over-complicated.

The UK government claimed the bill would secure "stronger" devolution.

Read more.

Newsnight

The Astronomer Royal, Prof Lord Rees, has referred to a speech made by Home Secretary Amber Rudd as "really deplorable".

Speaking at the Conservative Party conference Birmingham on Tuesday, Ms Rudd said new curbs on foreign workers and students were needed to "change the tide" of public opinion on immigration. She said students on "low-quality courses" could also face tougher entry rules.

But Lord Rees is concerned about the impact on UK science which, he says, has been strengthened by becoming "more international and far more involved with mainland Europe".

Newsnight compares Theresa May's closing speech to the Conservative conference on Wednesday to speeches given by Ed Miliband, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, John McDonnell and Gordon Brown.

BBC News Channel

Hannah Martin from Greenpeace says the government's decision on fracking is a "clear overturning of local decmocracy".

"This is going to impact our air quality and our countryside," she tells BBC News, and makes "a mockery" of the UK's obligations under the Paris climate change agreement.

She accuses the industry of trying to "palm off local communities with the promise of, essentially, cash bribes" and rejects the industry's arguments that fracking would cut gas bills.

"To be truly 21st Century about this, we need to be investing in renewable and smart technologies," Ms Martin says, adding that local communities are "considering their legal options".

The Daily Politics

BBC News Channel

Shadow energy minister Barry Gardiner says the decision to allow fracking in Lancashire is "a very bad day for local democracy".

"It's also locking us into a dirty, fossil fuel infrastructure that really is the energy source of the past, instead of looking to the clean, new energy of low-carbon technologies like wind and solar," he tells the BBC News channel.

Gas "is a technology that really is in its declining years", the Labour MP claims.

Image source, Getty Images

Business owners have given a mixed reaction to government proposals that could require companies to disclose what percentage of their workforce is non-British.

Home Secretary Amber Rudd defended the plans for companies to do more to employ British people, saying she was not "racist" for talking about immigration.

Read more.

The Guardian

UKIP is being run by a bunch of "circus clowns", the party's leading financial backer, Arron Banks, has claimed.

Mr Banks called on UKIP's sole MP, Douglas Carswell, to be thrown out, writing in The Guardian, external: "This body is populated by a motley collection of amateurs; leftovers from a bygone age, when Ukip was a ragtag band of volunteers on the fringes of British politics.

"Watching them try to run the modern political movement that (Nigel) Farage built is like watching a team of circus clowns trying to carry out a pit stop at the Silverstone Grand Prix."