House of Lords
Parliament

Labour peer and publisher Baroness Rebuck highlights what she sees as risks to the protection of copyright after Brexit.

She also discusses the importance of authors to the UK economy, and bookshops, saying the experience "cannot be replicated" on the internet.

The UK will not retain its dominant position in publishing if it does not support bookshops and libraries, she says.

House of Commons
Parliament

Shadow health minister Justin Madders pays tribute to the courage of Will Quince and Antoinette Sandbach in bringing the debate forward and speaking about their loss - and also to his Labour colleague Vicky Foxcroft.

He says the debate "has shown the House at its absolute best".

Mr Madders also wishes Mr Quince well with his private member's bill to give bereaved parents a legal right to time off work., external

The Labour MP also pays tribute to other members who have shared their stories, such as hospitals lacking bereavement suites and feelings of loneliness and isolation following bereavement.

He adds: "We can hope that, the more members talk about those experiences, that those situations will cease to happen."

House of Lords
Parliament

Crossbencher and Big Issue founder Lord Bird is opening his debate on the cultural, civic and educational significance of libraries, bookshops and booksellers in the United Kingdom. 

"If we don't sort out our libraries and our bookshops, and our high streets are denuded... we will have a real problem," he warns.

The disappearance of a yeast extract spread from one retailer's website has tickled social media.

House of Lords
Parliament

Education spokesman Viscount Younger of Leckie begins his wind-up speech by acknowledging this is a topic about which people feel "passionately". 

He says the government believes "each child go as far as talent and hard work can take them" and it's right to "question the status quo" if this will improve the situation. 

He tells peers a good education should be available to all, not just those whose families can afford to move to areas with outstanding schools. 

Image source, Getty Images

Former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard warns Theresa May that she may face more gender-based criticism as time goes by. 

Speaking to the Institute for Government she says she also took over "in a political crisis moment". At first there was little comment about her being a woman PM - the first in Australia's history, Ms Gillard says.

But, she adds, "the gender stuff grew over time, as the government I led dealt with the hard issues and got into politically choppy waters".

Ms Gillard was Labor PM from 2010 to 2013.

House of Commons
Parliament

Conservative MP Tim Loughton says progress in health advice on smoking and drinking in pregnancy has helped reduce baby loss.

He says, turning to bereavement support, that too many councils - two thirds - do not commission counselling support. 

He also cites the low figures of bereavement support in the NHS; and says "this is not something you grow out of, that leaves you when you leave the hospital. Those counselling services need to be available." 

Conservative Bernard Jenkin and Labour's Emma Reynolds on the UK leaving the EU.

They debated whether Parliament should be allowed to vote on the triggering of Article 50 and the government's initial negotiating position before talks with the rest of the EU.

Commenting on today's provisional GCSE tables, Shadow Education Secretary Angela Rayner voiced concerns over the performance of school children in northern England and the midlands, as well as criticising the government's new policy on grammar schools.

Ms Rayner said: "it is deeply concerning that children in the north and the midlands still appear to be lagging behind their southern peers.

"The difference in geography should not mean a difference in attainment.

"Government plans for more grammar schools will do absolutely nothing to address this."

Her comments come as the Lords debate proposals for the extension of grammar schools today. 

Today Programme
BBC Radio 4

Former Conservative Chancellor Ken Clarke says big fluctuations in the value of the pound will continue while uncertainty over Brexit persists. 

Mr Clarke, long known as an ardent Europhile, said the announcements at the Conservative Party conference about the UK leaving the EU had sparked a panic.  

Secretary of State Andrea Leadsom has confirmed the government's intention to maintain EU standards on air quality post-Brexit. 

Following today's announcement of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs' consultation on clean air zones in five English cities, Ms Leadsom took one question on the subject during this morning's session in Parliament. 

Nottingham South MP Lilian Greenwood asked "why has [Ms Leadsom] still not confirmed that EU air quality limits will be retained or improved?"

Ms Leadsom responded: "We will be nationalising the acquis communautaire (the treaties, standards and laws adopted by the EU), so the EU legislation will become UK law."

Defra launched its public consultation, external into the expansion of clean air zones in England today. 

Read the exchange in Hansard, external or see the excerpt below.

Image source, HoC

House of Lords
Parliament

Lib Dem education spokesperson Lord Storey begins his speech by telling the House that when he failed his eleven plus, the results were published in the local newspaper. His mother, he says, found out he'd failed from a neighbour.

He goes on to call the government's grammar school policy "wrong" at "every educational level" including social mobility, education standards and life chances; he says they "don't deliver on choice and they certainly don't help the neighbouring schools in that community".

For a solution to social mobility, he suggests the government starts by helping children in their early years, and that ministers increase support for parents in disadvantaged areas, such as the Sure Start programme.

House of Lords
Parliament

Labour education spokesperson Lord Watson of Invergowrie says "if government was serious about social mobility" it would invest in early years education. 

He says that since 2010 the network of Sure Start centres has been "ruthlessly cut". Additionally he says the government is about to cut nursery school funding, all of which shows the government's "true colours".

He also mentions proposals to allow faith schools to have an intake of more than 50% of pupils of the same faith. He says it's "potentially playing with fire" and may exacerbate a "toxic" situation in many communities.

Many MPs were moved to tears as Labour's Vicky Foxcroft spoke about the death of her baby daughter.

Tesco stops listing dozens of household brands, including Marmite and PG Tips, on its website because of a price dispute with its biggest supplier Unilever.

House of Commons
Parliament

Labour's Liz McInnes says the government and Parliament has the opportunity to put Will Quince's proposed bill on parental bereavement leave on the statute book, and says it is an entitlement which should be afforded to all.

"We as legislators must seek to act on the words spoken here today in the House," she says. She says the shared experience of Baby Awareness Week may help to alleviate the grief felt; and she finishes by paying tribute to MPs who have spoken about their own losses.

Kevin Peachey
Personal finance reporter

Image source, Thinkstock

Early access to a state pension for those who start work at 16 or who work in manual jobs is among suggestions made to an official review.

Other submissions include extra help for carers and the chance to take a lower state pension at a younger age.

They have been highlighted in an interim government-commissioned review of the state pension age, external.

It said special conditions should be considered for those seriously affected by a demand to work for longer.

Read more...

House of Lords
Parliament

Labour's Lord Liddle is one of many peers who've spoken to oppose reintroducing grammars. He says he can "think of no other European nation" that would be having a debate about re-introducing selection, and fears that a post-Brexit UK may be going towards a "backwards looking insularity" to its approach to the world.

He says that academic selection causes social division, and remembers walking home in his grammar school uniform having to "dodge the stones thrown" by other boys who "resented the fact that I was going to the grammar school".

House of Commons
Parliament

Conservative MP Victoria Prentis says she wants a health professional to be tasked with the "mental care" of the family following the death of a baby; while explaining what is going on to grieving families is critical, and putting mothers who have lost a child in with live babies is not suitable.

She highlights her fellow MP Will Quince's point that looking after fathers is vital; and quotes the medical journal the Lancet, on how the grief of losing a baby can harm relationships; and the effect it can have on grandparents.

She says she hopes that there will be changes to the issue of infant cremation and welcomes the Ministry of Justice's consultation on the issue, external. 

The minister Philip Dunne intervenes to say the minister has formed a national cremation working group, looking to take evidence on the subject.

The Labour MP Stephen Kinnock has blamed the decision to leave the EU for the current conflict between Tesco and the Anglo-Dutch giant Unilever. 

The dispute centres on the falling value of the pound versus the euro, which Unilever claims has diminished the returns on supplying its products to UK retailers. 

Speaking on behalf of the Open Britain campaign - which supports British membership of the single market - Mr Kinnock said: "When the plunging pound stops you from getting PG Tips and Marmite in the supermarket, you’re truly starting to feel the first tremors of Brexit.

"The best thing the Government can do for economic confidence and the pound is to commit now to starting the upcoming negotiations on the basis of securing full and unrestricted access to the Single Market." 

Read more: Unilever and Tesco at loggerheads