A key lawyer for the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse has resigned, BBC Newsnight has learned.

Toby Fisher, one of the first three barristers appointed to the inquiry, said he wanted to stand down in August.

It is understood he was concerned by the inquiry's "progress and direction" and was not otherwise planning on leaving.

A spokesman for the inquiry would not comment on specifics and Mr Fisher declined to comment.

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Brian Wheeler

Republican nominee Donald Trump has vowed to pull off "Brexit times five" in the US presidential elections. Could he do it?

Millions of Britons switched off their TVs and went to bed late on Thursday 23 June in the fairly confident belief that, for better or worse, nothing was going to change.

They awoke to pictures of UKIP leader Nigel Farage telling ecstatic supporters that the "dawn is breaking on an independent United Kingdom".

Could America be in for a similar dawn surprise on the morning of 9 November?

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Image source, Reuters

More than 100 Muslim women have complained about their treatment under two government probes into Sharia law.

The inquiries - one ordered by Theresa May when she was home secretary, and another by the home affairs select committee - are ongoing.

But some women have signed an open letter and said the aim is to ban Sharia councils, not reform them.

The Muslim Women's Network UK said the inquiries risk treating women like "political footballs".

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Image source, PA

HMRC is chasing almost £2bn that is potentially owed in taxes by the UK's richest people, according to the public spending watchdog.

The National Audit Office said, external HMRC's specialist unit recovered £416m in 2015 from 6,500 "high net worth individuals" with wealth of more than £20m.

But efforts are ongoing to recover an estimated £1.9bn, the NAO said.

Each one of the group of 6,500 is assigned their own HMRC official to liaise with over their tax bill.

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Image source, Homer Sykes

In 1984 police and striking miners clashed violently at Orgreave in South Yorkshire. But now there is growing pressure for an inquiry to investigate what went on that day.

Orgreave is an ugly word. Stubbornly linked with one of the most violent episodes in British industrial history.

Even the developers transforming the place are trying to change it. "We are Waverley," declare the signs. "A vibrant new community providing leading-edge jobs and desirable new homes."

It's a place Stefan Wysocki will never forget and yet he's struggling to recognise it.

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Some Conservative MPs are to join the SNP in demanding a debate on postponing disability benefit cuts.

Home Secretary Amber Rudd writes to campaigners explaining why she ruled out an inquiry into violence at Orgreave in 1984.

HMRC is chasing £1.9bn potentially owed in taxes by the UK's richest people, a report says.

Bank of England governor Mark Carney announces he will step down in June 2019.

• Bank of England governor Mark Carney has announced he will step down in June 2019
• Earlier, Theresa May backed him to remain in post
• Home Secretary Amber Rudd announced there would be no inquiry into the Battle of Orgreave, where police and striking miners clashed in 1984
• MPs on the Health Committee questioned government claims that it is putting an extra £10 billion of funding into the NHS
• UKIP leadership contender Raheem Kassam dropped out of the race shortly before today's deadline for nominations

House of Commons
Parliament

Labour's shadow business secretary Clive Lewis says it is "fantastic news for Sunderland, and fantastic news for the country as a whole" as well as a great tribute to the workforce at the plant. But Labour has some concerns. 

He says that Greg Clark has not been "transparent" over what he's offered Nissan and that the government must have a Brexit strategy that's very convincing, if it convinced Nissan to stay - and so he asks why Parliament can't know what it is. 

He asks the government to "show us the letter".

In reply, Greg Clark says he's surprised that the Labour Party is "so miserable" and can't "congratulate everyone involved on a success that is in all our interests". He says that he's "set out the information" that he gave to Nissan.

He adds that it's his responsibility as Business Secretary to "attract investment" to the UK.

House of Commons
Parliament

Image source, AFP/Getty Images

Business Secretary Greg Clark is making a statement on the Japanese carmaker Nissan's announcement it would make two new models in Sunderland.

He says it's the "latest in a series of investments" in Britain that "prove we are open for business" and that it's "hard to think of more unambiguously good news".

Greg Clark told the Andrew Marr programme yesterday that he had kept Nissan onside by telling them that post-Brexit the UK would be aiming to "ensure that we have continued access to the markets in Europe and vice versa without tariffs and without bureaucratic impediments".

House of Commons
Parliament

Labour backbencher Stephen Timms says that the number of disabled people in work is "pitfully small" and asks how long they expect to take to half the disability employment gap.

Work and Pensions Secretary Damian Green says it's "premature of me to set targets" but the government is taking practical steps to increase employment among disabled people such as "more than doubling the number of disability employment advisors".

House of Lords
Parliament

Lord Wigley's next amendment would create separate legal jurisdictions of Wales and England.

The two UK nations currently form one legal jurisdiction, with Scotland and Northern Ireland as separate jurisdictions.

The Plaid Cymru peer argues there is "a need to address the diversion of Wales and England".

House of Commons
Parliament

Iain Duncan Smith, work and pensions secretary from 2010 until his resignation earlier this year, says he wants to "unreservedly welcome the statement". 

He says he wants the government to consider the difficulties of there being a "binary choice" in the benefits system between people being fit to work or too sick. He asks if it's feasible to "move away from that binary choice". 

Damian Green says he's "very grateful for support" from one of his predecessors who is "quite right about the binary choice". 

He says that under the universal credit system "we have the capacity to be much more flexible" so that "people are not simply put in one group or another and then left there".

House of Commons
Parliament

Labour's Debbie Abrahams says the government is "kicking the issue [of supporting disabled people] into the long grass". She says Mr Green is the third secretary of state to promise this, but once again it is "talk, no action".

She says the government is responsible for a negative attitude towards disabled people with a "shirker scrounger narrative" and that many will feel anxiety about "coded messages" in this consultation.

Damian Green says he's "disappointed" with "how completely out of touch" Debbie Abrahams is. He cites support from organisations like Scope, Arthritis Research UK and the Work Foundation as evidence.

House of Commons
Parliament

Work and Pensions Secretary Damian Green says "the barriers to entry for work are too high" for many disabled people and that the government is committed to providing "opportunity for work for those who can, help for those who could and care for those who can't".

He says the Conservatives inherited a "broken system" from Labour and have now brought "control and the right values" to the system.

He says that after today's Green Paper the government will be "consulting on further reform of the work capability assessment" and hope to create a system which will focus on what people can do "rather than what they can't".

He says that the government "intends to improve the way the welfare system responds to real people with health conditions" and produce a culture of "high ambition and high expectations for the disabled people of this country, because they deserve it".

Jeremy Corbyn has said he agrees with MPs on the Health Select Committee who say the government is wrong to claim it is allocating an extra £10bn to the NHS in England over the next five years.

In a letter to the Chancellor, the committee argued the actual figure was closer to £4.5bn and called for more NHS funding in November's Autumn Statement.

Asked by the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg how much extra funding he believes the NHS needs, the Labour Leader said he "couldn't put an absolute figure on it" but said "I do think it needs far more".

Mr Corbyn said he would pay for additional funding by reorganising the NHS in England to end its "internal market", arguing the government was "now spending so much money on internal trade arrangements within the NHS and subsidising many private health companies, some of which are not delivering the service perhaps they ought to be because they lack the accountability that directly employed NHS staff have".

He said this would be paid for by "a combination of corporate taxation, which would be maintained or raised if it's cut by this government, and also collecting uncollected taxes".