In one of her first acts as chairwoman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, Yvette Cooper has written to Home Secretary Amber Rudd seeking information on the decision not to open an inquiry into the 1984 clash between miners and police at Orgreave in South Yorkshire. 

Ms Cooper said: "Concern about policing at Orgreave will not go away as long as there are fears that the truth has not come out." 

She continued: "We need to know what information the Home Secretary looked at before taking her decision and whether she examined papers from the time from South Yorkshire Police or Government files."

The former shadow home secretary is asking to see the information the government holds on Orgreave, as well as what information underpinned Monday's decision. 

Select Committee
Parliament

Sir John Chilcot says he could not say whether the invasion of Iraq was legal in international law.

But he told the panel of MPs "the process by which the view was reached by the British government... was unsatisfactory and deficient in more than a few respects", but he couldn't say whether it was unlawful.

Sir John said he believed a judge-led inquiry wouldn't have been able to reach a view either, adding: "We were certainly not in a position to offer that opinion."

House of Lords
Parliament

"I was one of those who was hacked," says Labour peer Lord Prescott.

"If you tell me that something's going to be different, please explain to me what that's going to be."

An angry former deputy PM adds: "Consultation? It went on for years under Leveson. You don't need more consultation."

He says that people have debated the freedom of the press but asks: "Does anybody complain about the freedom of the victims?"

"You're here!" shouts someone.

House of Commons
Parliament

Labour's community pharmacies motion, asking the government to "rethink" proposed changes is voted down by MPs, by 305 votes to 211.

The House backs the government's amendment welcoming the changes instead.

House of Lords
Parliament

Crossbench peer Lord Pannick says the Investigatory Powers Bill is about national security and there is "no justification for the passage of this important bill to be held hostage" to those who want to bring section 40 into force.

Labour peer Lord Rooker, another strong supporter of the bill, argues that it makes no sense not to wait for the outcome of the government's consultation on further press regulation.

House of Commons
Parliament

Minister Philip Dunne ends his speech by saying that the government's reforms "are what the NHS needs, and what users and taxpayers expect".

The changes will lead to a system that's "better integrated", he says, before asking MPs to vote for the government's amendment.

MPs then move to a vote on Labour's original motion, which calls on the government to "rethink" its changes to community pharmacy funding.

Sir John Chilcot says the Cabinet should have received formal advice from the attorney general about the legal basis of the Iraq War.

He said his report had been unable to give a conclusion about its legality because his inquiry had not been a court of law.

But he said:

House of Commons
Parliament

Health Minister Philip Dunne is ending the debate for the government. 

He says there's "near unanimity" around the House at the importance of work that's done by community pharmacies. 

He defends government moves to cut what he calls the "only fixed rate subsidy I'm aware of that is paid to private businesses on high streets" and accuses the shadow health secretary Jon Ashworth of making a speech at the start of the debate designed to "scare the public...without demonstrating a genuine understanding" of how community pharmacies work or are funded.

House of Lords
Parliament

Labour peer Lord Lipsey backs Baroness Hollins.

"The government has done absolutely nothing to further the cause of Leveson," he says.

He calls on peers to pressure the press and the government as part of "an active search for a compromise" and urges the House to "insist" on its amendment.

Otherwise, "the press will walk all over us", he claims.

House of Lords
Parliament

Crossbench peer Baroness Hollins, who spoke in support the 'Leveson amendment' on Monday, repeats her earlier argument that the amendment was necessary because the government "reneged" on cross-party agreements on Leveson.

She says it is "our right, our role and our duty" to ask the Commons to "think again", but proposes new amendments which she believes are "improved for the benefit of the government".

They do not impinge on other parts of the bill and focus on "phone and email hacking alone", she argues.

She urges the government to "please protect some small measure of access to justice for victims".

Select Committee
Parliament

Conservative Bernard Jenkin asks about Downing Street's capacity for analysis of strategic choice to provide "an atmosphere of challenge".

Sir John replies that although throughout the decades governments have set up different versions of policy units at No 10, there has not been a "constitutional reworking" of the advice available to a prime minister.

Should that change? asks Mr Jenkin.

Sir John believes that structures and institutions only go so far - "It is the people and the way they work that matters."

House of Commons
Parliament

Shadow health minister Julie Cooper is winding the debate up for Labour. She says she's worked in the community pharmacy sector so has seen it up close.

"Far from being a costly drain on NHS resources, community pharmacies actually save the NHS money," she says.

"I do not know how many [branches] will close, and nor does the minister," she says, but "it won't be the large pharmacy chains that close." 

It will instead be small, locally owned pharmacies who close down. Others will "reduce hours and services".

House of Lords
Parliament

Peers are considering Commons amendments to the Investigatory Powers Bill, beginning with MPs' rejection of the "Leveson amendment" passed in the Lords.

The amendment would have required newspapers to pay libel costs - even if they won their case - unless they joined a recognised regulator.

MPs threw out the amendment on Tuesday, after Culture Secretary Karen Bradley announced a consultation of whether to bring into force section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013, which effectively does the same thing.

Defending Ms Bradley's announcement, deputy leader of the Lords Earl Howe argues that "it is surely right that the government now takes stock... and seeks the views of all interested parties".

He urges peers to contribute to the consultation but tells them it is wrong to introduce the measure in a completely different piece of legislation, as peers sought to do on Monday.

Evening Standard

Jeremy Corbyn's neighbour gave him a new Marks & Spencer suit for winning the Labour leadership election, the Evening Standard says.

Mr Corbyn arrived at the Pride of Britain Awards on Monday night in unusually smart attire, the paper says and revealed the dark M&S suit was a gift from a neighbour in his Islington constituency following his election victory over Owen Smith after defeating attempts by party MPs to oust him as leader.

Read the full Evening Standard story, external

Select Committee
Parliament

Sir John Chilcot says that Tony Blair had done long-term damage to trust in politics when he put forward a case for war that went beyond the "facts of the case".

He told the panel of senior MPs be believed it would take many years to repair the harm the former prime minister's actions had caused.

Asked if trust in politics had been corroded because MPs were told things that could not reasonably be supported by the evidence, Sir John told the House of Commons Liaison Committee:

He told MPs he "can only imagine" it would take a long time to repair the trust. 

Select Committee
Parliament

Image source, PA

Tony Blair's success in turning around Labour's electoral chances had given him a "personal and political dominance" over his Cabinet when it came to decisions on Iraq, Sir John Chilcot has said.

He made the claim after Labour's Ian Wright questioned him about Mr Blair's "sofa style of government".

Sir John said he was "totally convinced that without a coherent process, however it's conducted, you can't discharge the responsibility ... effectively".

He said his inquiry questioned why members of Mr Blair's cabinet - other than Robin Cook and Clare Short - had not provided "more challenge or debate" over decisions about the Iraq War.

"The answer that came back was Tony Blair had - as leader of the opposition - rescued his party from a very dire political predicament and had done so again as prime minister and he had achieved a personal and political dominance that over-rided cabinet."

Sir John said "things were decided without reference for Cabinet".

He added: "He'd been right. Was he not right this time? That's the sense I took from Mr [Jack] Straw's evidence."

Reality Check

Image source, iStock

Signing free trade agreements if the UK leaves the single market will not be much help to the services sector that dominates the UK economy, according to a report, external from the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR).

It looked at trading between 42 developed countries and found that while being a member of the European single market creates substantial improvements in trade in services, other free trade agreements do not create any significant increase in trade in services.

"This indicates that promoting services trade requires the deeper kind of integration offered by the European Economic Area, including elements such as regulatory harmonisation and/or free movement of labour," the report by Monique Ebell said.

While economic modelling of what will happen after we leave the EU suffers from the problem that we have no examples of a country leaving a single market to use as a benchmark, it is striking how little existing free trade agreements seem to have boosted trade in services.

That suggests that if the UK is to give up its membership of the single market the free trade agreements designed to replace it will have to be different to any that have been agreed so far.

Select Committee
Parliament

It's "incontestable that Tony Blair overestimated" his ability to influence US decisions on Iraq, Sir John Chilcot has said.

He was not saying there was no influence, he said, particularly in persuading US President Bush to turn to the UN in Sept 2002 before going to war.

But by the end of 2002, President Bush had concluded the UN-based inspections system "was not going to be the answer and the military timetable had taken control".

"As to what Mr Blair's purpose was, he clearly sought to try to reconcile US decisions and objectives - regime change...  with the UK objective, which was the disarmament of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction," Sir John said.

He argued that Mr Blair "wanted to avoid unilateral US action".

Asked if Mr Blair should have demanded a higher price for British support, Sir John said it was "difficult to avoid a conclusion that had Mr Blair stated clear conditions for supporting US military action there might have been more influence on the timing of any US action".

As it was Mr Blair's conditions were for success and not conditions for UK support, he said.

Select Committee
Parliament

Sir John Chilcot is being asked about the scope of his inquiry into the Iraq war.

"We had total access to all material of any category of sensitivity at all and much of the negotiation was about disclosure and the ability to publish it," he said.

He said public acceptance of the inquiry's broad conclusions and lessons to be drawn "demonstrated a reasonably good understanding" of the report.

Select Committee
Parliament

Conservative MP Crispin Blunt begins by comparing the length and cost of a select committee report into the Iraq war with that of the Chilcot Inquiry.

He suggests that the cheaper, shorter select committee report actually produced "firmer conclusions".