House of Commons
Parliament

SNP spokesman Pete Wishart says the leader of the House has come up with "a sensible suggestion" to request the Committee of Privileges to "come forward with a report" on possible sanctions for MPs to consider.

House of Commons
Parliament

Damian Collins, the chairman of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, says "the case against Tom Crone and Colin Myler is compelling".

He accuses them of "a systematic attempt to mislead Parliament" and says the men have shown "no remorse".

Phone hacking at the News of the World was widespread, he says, "and they all knew about it".

Witnesses should be "compelled to tell the truth" and "there should be some clear sanction in law", he argues.

Select Committee
Parliament

After a fairly combative last few minutes, Andrew Tyrie concludes the committee's proceedings by calling the problem "a sorry episode" but says that the committee understands that things go wrong.

"We are here to provide a high degree of transparency about what went wrong," he tells the witnesses.

Select Committee
Parliament

SNP MP George Kerevan asks the panel whether, in the light of everything that has happened, HMRC would offer the same type of contract to a third party again.

Mr Thompson replies that he would not go with an incentives-based contract again.

Andrew Tyrie tells the witnesses that he is concerned about the vagueness of some of the replies received in this session and what he calls the "lack of clarity" on some of the numbers given.

House of Commons
Parliament

Shadow leader of the House Valerie Vaz says that Committee of Privileges prepared its report with "high standards of fairness".

It is "normal practice to agree with a Privilege Committee report", she adds, signalling that Labour backs the motion.

Select Committee
Parliament

In response to a direct question from committee chair Andrew Tyrie about the system for providing tax credits to claimants, the Chief Executive of HMRC says that in his view the tax credit system is "deeply flawed".

"I could use even more colourful language if you wanted," Jon Thompson tells the committee.

House of Commons
Parliament

Leader of the House David Lidington says the finding that MPs "were knowingly misled is extremely serious".

Conservative MP Philip Davies intervenes to ask if the penalty of admonishment is "commensurate".

Labour MP Chris Bryant, a former shadow culture secretary, says the witnesses showed "no respect" for Parliament and should be compelled to appear before the House.

Mr Lidington suggests that would not be right "at this time".

Colin Myler and Tom Crone should "not escape with their reputations unscathed", he says, but argues it is right to ask the Committee of Privileges to examine "the exercise of penal powers".

Select Committee
Parliament

Labour's Wes Sreeting accuses HMRC of misunderstanding the issue, saying that they see it as merely a telephone and customer service problem.

"But it's a judgement problem, an evidence problem - and that's you," he tells the witnesses. Mr Streeting further says "your evidence is really flimsy and people are suffering as a result".

Jon Thompson tells the committee that he understands the problem is that people are not being awarded the correct benefits.

Regarding the contract, Mr Thompson says that a third party was sought to bring some capability and extra expertise to the process.

House of Commons
Parliament

Conservative MP Julian Lewis, who chairs the Commons Defence Committee, says he is very concerned about planned cuts to BBC Monitoring and the potential closure of its site at Caversham Park, Reading.

He says the Foreign Affairs Committee shares these concerns and asks the deputy speaker's advice on ways to "compel a minister to do his job and come before us" to give evidence to the committees.

Deputy Speaker Natascha Engel says the leader of the House has heard his comments and can report back to the government.

While peers were discussing the apparent collapse of the CETA deal, the Belgian Prime Minister announced that the Belgian regions had reached an agreement and that the deal would be able to be signed next week.

Downing Street says Nissan's decision to build the new Qashqai and Xtrail in Sunderland is a “ringing endorsement of Britain as an outward-looking, world-leading nation to do business”.

It said the move showed “global Britain” was “a place to invest and do business”.

But the No 10 spokesman was unable to give any details of the “support and assurances” given to Nissan, cited by the company as a reason for its decision.

House of Lords
Parliament

Image source, EPA

Liberal Democrat Baroness Falkner of Margravine is asking a question on what lessons the government is drawing from the breakdown of negotiations over the Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement (CETA) between Canada and the EU.

The deal is in trouble because of opposition from the parliament of the Belgian region of Wallonia.

Minister Baroness Mobarik says "the UK is unique and the deal we negotiate will be bespoke". She points to differences between the UK and Canada including the UK's EU membership and the UK being a more important market for the EU.

Conservative Lord Forsyth says he's "tired of these moaning minnies", and points to better than expected economic news today and an announcement from Nissan that two new models will be built in Sunderland. 

He says the lesson of the collapse of CETA is that negotiating with 28 different countries is "extremely difficult" and that in future "we can decide for ourselves".

House of Commons
Parliament

Image source, Getty Images

The SNP's spokesman on sport, Gavin Newlands, calls for a Commons debate on "homophobia in football and in male team sport more generally".

He highlights a BBC survey which reported that, while 82% of supporters would have no issue with a gay player, 8% of football fans said they would stop watching their team if it signed a gay player.

Last week, Football Association chairman Greg Clarke told MPs he was "cautious" of encouraging a player to come out because they may suffer "significant abuse" from fans.

Leader of the House David Lidington says Mr Newlands is welcome to raise the matter during Culture, Media and Sport questions. He agrees that there have been "some pretty vile homophobic slogans and sentiments" which have "no place in sport".

Shadow chancellor John McDonnell has just been asked about Nissan's announcement this morning that the latest versions of two of its cars will be built in Sunderland. 

"This is chaos at the moment," he says, accusing the government of doing deals "secretly behind closed doors" on "individual factory deals".

"What other manufacturers are going to say is 'what about us?'"

Select Committee
Parliament

Labour's Wes Streeting asks the witnesses "when if at all" HMRC monitoring of the contract provision noticed a difference in the service provided by Concetrix.

Mr Lodge says there were issues "from time to time" that were addressed individually.

When pressed for details of these issues, Mr Lodge says HMRC had identified concerns with the company hitting quality standards in the decision making process.

Mr Streeting asks the panel if they are confident that Concentrix were operating within the law with its decisions, especially regarding the burden of proof for withdrawing tax credits.

The Director General for Transformation at HMRC, Mr Lodge, replies that he was indeed assured Concentrix worked within the law.

The UK economy has “held up very well” since the vote to leave the EU, but there is “a period of uncertainty” ahead as the UK negotiates Brexit, Chancellor Philip Hammond says.

He said GDP figures showing 0.5% growth in the three months after the vote for Brexit showed resilience. 

But he warned of coming uncertainty as business waited to see the outcome of UK-EU talks on leaving the bloc. 

The government had to make sure it was “prepared and ready to support the economy” during that time and secure a “successful outcome”, he said. 

He said the Bank of England’s monetary stimulus package had helped to “keep consumer confidence high” and economic growth up in the third quarter.

The consensus of economic forecasts was that there would be “slower growth” in 2017 “as we go through this period of uncertainty”, he said.

He will set out in the Autumn Statement how he intends to deal with the “challenge of reaching fiscal balance”, if there was less tax revenue, if the economy shrinks.

House of Lords
Parliament

Lib Dem Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury asks if the government will match current levels of EU funding for the arts after Brexit.

Minister Lord Ashton of Hyde says the government stands behind the "guarantee" previously offered by the chancellor for EU funded projects until 2020, as long as funding it "best serves the national interest".

He says the creative industries are a "great success stories of Britain", have undergone a 34% expansion since 2010 and are "economically important" to the country. 

Reality Check

Image source, EPA

Remember the Vote Leave competition to win £50m if you could guess the results of all the games at Euro 2016?

At the time, Reality Check pointed out that the chances of winning the £50m were slightly better than the odds of guessing the mobile phone numbers of the next two people you meet in the street.

Well, it turns out that nobody did win the £50m.

The consolation prize was £50,000 to the person who guessed the most games right, consecutively from the start of the tournament.

I'm told that was paid out, but that a confidentiality agreement prevents them from naming the winner or how many results he or she guessed correctly.