House of Lords
Parliament

Image source, PA

Conservative Lord Forsyth of Drumlean asks what consideration the government is giving to comissioning a new Royal Yacht. The campaign has been backed by Tory MPs and the Daily Telegraph, who argue a new ship could be a "floating embassy" for striking trade deals post-Brexit.

The last Royal Yacht, Britannia, was decomissioned in 1997.

Answering for the Ministry of Defence, Earl Howe says "the government has no requirement for a Royal Yacht" to laughter from peers.

Lord Forsyth says that when he held meetings abroad with foreign industrialists on the Royal Yacht as a minister "they weren't coming to see me". He asks what possible objection the government could have to a "privately funded" cost-benefit analysis.

Earl Howe tells Lord Forsyth he "underestimates his pulling power". 

On the question of a cost-benefit analysis, he says it would still leave a question of how it would be paid for, and says that paying for it out of public funds would not be justifiable.

Select Committee
Parliament

Andrew Turner asks that given the agenda of the EU council intended to authorise Ceta ahead of the Canada-EU summit was available to the Department for International Trade, would the international trade secretary not have realised the potential political interest in the deal and the need for a debate?

Mr Fox says part of the issue was that the House was on its summer recess for much of the time since the details were made available. 

He says he's "very relaxed" about holding a debate on any element of free trade, but it wasn't possible given the "very short" time available. 

Mr Fox adds that the details of what aspects of Ceta would be left to national parliaments to decide were only made clear at a council meeting in September. 

Select Committee
Parliament

In a moment the Joint Committee on Human Rights will take evidence for its inquiry on the human rights implications of the UK vote to leave the European Union.

The committee will hear from Marina Wheeler QC - a leading lawyer and also spouse of Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson.

House of Lords
Parliament

Conservative peer Lord Naseby gets the day underway in the Lords by asking if the government intends to review the number of students studying medicine. He says he's worried that many medical students now say they want to work part time after qualifying. He asks if the government will consider a minimum full-time commitment to the NHS for medical students.

Health Minister Lord Prior of Brampton tells peers that the health secretary "would be looking" at the idea of a minimum term and that asking medical graduates to work for the NHS full time for four years is "not unreasonable".

House of Commons
Parliament

Labour's Maria Eagle says Concentrix should apologise people who have had tax credits removed wrongly.

Her Labour colleague, Louise Haigh, says she hopes the end of the Concentrix contract "marks the end of payment by results in our welfare system".

Select Committee
Parliament

Image source, HoC

The SNP's Peter Grant wants to return to the international trade secretary's use of the phrase "EU competence", saying that member states still have to agree to what is defined as falling within the EU's competence. 

He asks if International Trade Secretary Liam Fox would have had the power to delay the provisional application of Ceta - the EU-Canada trade deal - allowing MPs to debate it beforehand. 

Mr Fox says the full ratification of the trade agreement would still be up to parliament, and that he's happy to set out which parts of it are subject to national competence if that would be useful. 

Asked if he had "irreversibly" signed the United Kingdom up to the parts of the deal under EU competence without parliamentary scrutiny, Mr Fox says "Yes, because the view was that the deal was worth a great deal in terms of jobs, investment and prosperity, and to delay it unnecessarily would put those things at risk." 

Select Committee
Parliament

Image source, HoC

Liam Fox says the EU deal with Canada may be worth as much as £1.3 billion a year to the UK while it remains an EU member.

He says the decision not to debate Ceta in the Commons has been vindicated by recent events in Wallonia, where the parliament blocked the deal. 

Mr Fox says he is "sorry" that MPs were not able to scrutinise the trade deal, but that the timeline of the EU's negotiations meant there wasn't time.

He adds that there are plans for a debate on Ceta in the Commons, potentially in November.

Mr Fox says that only aspects of the deal that fall under EU competence have been provisionally applied. Areas under UK competence, such as portfolio investment and some aspects of sustainable development would still need to be ratified by parliament. 

He says the decision to enact the scrutiny override on Ceta was a "political and national imperative".

Nicola Sturgeon calls for an "all Scotland coalition" in Brexit negotiations with the UK government.

House of Commons
Parliament

The SDLP's Mark Durkan says that the character of the outsourcing of work to Concentrix "raises questions about the mentality" of HMRC.

Mr Durkan points out that many cases in the "debacle" that is being debated, HMRC were often to blame for causing problems.

He says he hopes that the government will act to change the culture at HMRC to address the "hostility and suspicion" to its customers.

House of Commons
Parliament

SNP MP Corrie Wilson calls for the government to apologise for the situation.

"It's time this government accepts its role in this fiasco and steps up to take responsibility for the carnage it has caused in people's lives," she says.

The MP for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock says ministers "must apologise for the hardship and suffering that people have faced".

She also recommends that HMRC not be downsized and also that a free phone line should be set up to deal with claimants affected by Concentrix.

House of Lords
Parliament

The House of Lords will meet from 3pm today, beginning with the daily oral questions session. Peers are due to ask questions on medical students, industrial strategy, a new Royal Yacht and the Prevent strategy.

The main business of the day is committee stage of the Policing and Crime Bill.

House of Commons
Parliament

Labour MP Kate Green says that when a benefits system "starts to make assumptions about intimate relationships and living arrangements" - it is incumbent on government and its agents to deal with them with "great sensitivity and great care".

Ms Green says that "perhaps because of the payments by results model" it is clear that Concentrix "did not bother to do that".

The Stretford and Urmston MP joins other MPs in recounting constituent cases of demands made by the company, saying that they took "the flimsiest evidence at face-value" and as a consequence tax credits would be stopped.

House of Commons
Parliament

Conservative MP Kevin Foster tells the chamber that some of his constituents would ring Concentrix at his office with concerns about service provision, and together they would "enjoy the hold music that they were listening to with a cup of tea" - often for over an hour.

"To be fair to Concentrix it did only take them four minutes to say you should be calling HMRC," says Mr Foster.

The MP for Torbay says that the only surprising thing was that Concentrix were surprised when their contract was not renewed. 

Mr Foster says he welcomes the government decision to not renew the contract with Concentrix and of HMRC moving in to provide service.

"For me the focus is dealing with the issues rather than whether the gesture of an apology should be made," he says.

Select Committee
Parliament

Image source, HoC

Labour MP Kate Hoey asks Liam Fox what the Walloon parliament in Belgium has been offered to make him hopeful the deal will be ratified by them tomorrow (the Belgian region has been blocking the agreement so far). 

Liam Fox says there are to be further talks with them today, and that the government believes the deal would be in the interests of Belgium. 

Ms Hoey finishes by asking if the UK will be able to make its own free trade deal with Canada once it leaves the EU.

Mr Fox says what happens after the UK leaves the EU is subject to "a whole range of options".

Select Committee
Parliament

Image source, HoC

International Trade Secretary Liam Fox is appearing before MPs, talking about Ceta, Canada's proposed trade deal with the EU.

The chair Sir William Cash wants it put on the record that trade deals have been the subject of "fierce" controversy in recent months, debated in parliaments across the EU and protested against in the streets due to concerns over employment and environmental standards. 

The first question: Ceta has major implications for the UK, both while it remains an EU member and after it leaves. 

The chair asks when a debate on Ceta will take place, given Dr Fox's stated preference for a debate in early 2017 - after Ceta was due to come into effect. 

He also asks how this "unsatisfactory situation has developed", with Mr Fox's department giving provisional approval to the trade deal without it being debated by MPs first. 

The Republic of Ireland does not have an agreement with the government on how to control travel to the UK from Irish ports and airports, the taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister) has said.

The Daily Politics

House of Commons
Parliament

SNP MP Mhairi Black accuses Concentrix of "the most ridiculous level of incompetence".

She says tax credit recipients were "accused of relationships with dead tenants" and even "their own children".

Ms Black says the best example concerns RS McColl, a chain of corner shops in Scotland, "as common as a WH Smith is in England".

She continues: "People were accused of living with this mysterious Mr McColl, because their flat was above an RS McColl shop.

"At no point did anyone in Concentrix or HMRC think: wait a minute, this Casanova's getting about a bit."

The SNP MP adds that the story might be funny, except for the fact that this is "people's lives and survival that we're talking about".

Key quotes from high-profile European and other figures on Britain's EU referendum, as compiled by BBC Monitoring between 20-26 October.