Select Committee
Parliament

The Foreign Affairs Committee session has been billed as "Critics of the Kremlin give evidence". the first witness is Mikhail Khodorkovsky who launched Open Russia in 2014, an initiative with the aim of "building and strengthening civil society in Russia".

Mr Khodorkovsky begins by telling the committee he was in prison in Russia for 10 years on "a trumped up charge".

When asked if it is possible for the UK to usefully engage with Putin and Russia he says:

"I don't think that is possible strategically, to normalise relations with the Kremlin, while the present leadership is in place."

He tells the committee that Putin has "a completely different understanding of the world from the one you have here and more than that, so as to remain at the head of Russia... for the remainder of his life, he needs to have an external enemy and I think that clearly he has chosen that to be the West and in particular Great Britiain."

House of Commons
Parliament

Shadow education minister Mike Kane says Labour will be "opposing this regressive policy of grammar school expansion every step of the way".

He argues that the government's policy shows its "true colours: working in the interests of a few while everybody else is left behind".

He adds: "Less than 3% of children on free school meals attend grammar school."

Mr Kane also claims there is "a black hole" in education funding and "a crisis in teacher morale".

Image source, House of Commons

Russian businessman and political dissident Mikhail Khodorkovsky is appearing before the Foreign Affairs Committee to discuss British relations with Russia. 

The former oligarch spent nearly a decade in jail after being convicted of fraud and stripped of his ownership of oil firm Yukos - following a high-profile trial which he has always insisted was politically motivated.

Speaking in Russian, he tells MPs that he cannot see British relations with Russia being "normalised" while President Vladimir Putin remains in power, which he suggests he intends to do for the "rest of his life". The Russian leader's "understanding of the world is very different from the one you have here", he adds.

While Britain and the UK have different objectives and dialogue is difficult, he says that does not mean the UK should not try to cultivate as good a relationship with Moscow as possible. He says the UK should focus on "softer approaches" to enhance mutual co-operation in areas such as culture and science. 

The government has been given permission by the Supreme Court to appeal against a High Court ruling that the prime minister must seek MPs' approval to trigger the process of taking Britain out of the European Union. 

The challenge will start on 5 December and is expected to last four days.The UK Supreme Court has also said that all 11 justices will sit on the panel. 

In case you fancy a different way of getting into the elections, here's a clay explainer on the two candidates from our friends at the BBC's Newsround: 

House of Lords
Parliament

Conservative Baroness Rawlings asks how the government intends to consult British businesses over proposed changes to work capability assessments. The assessments are used to decide if people are able to work or not.

Last week Work and Pensions Secretary Damian Green announced the much-criticised system would be "personalised".

Minister Lord Freud says "we are developing our consultation plan" to enable "engage properly" with business on the plans. 

He says there'll be a "particular focus on small and medium sized employers".

House of Lords
Parliament

Conservative - and former justice minister - Lord Faulks asks the minister if he will condemn last week's "disgraceful attack on the judiciary" asks if minister will "show the government's support for the whole cohort of the judiciary".

Last week, the Daily Mail branded the High Court judges, who ruled that a parliamentary vote is needed to trigger Article 50 and leave the EU, "enemies of the people" on the front page.

Minister Lord Keen of Elie tells the House that the country has "a judiciary of the highest calibre, we have a free press which is not always of the highest calibre". 

"Sensationalist and ill informed" attacks may dent the judiciary's image but the public can can have "every confidence" in the judiciary and that "must be shared by the executive", he says.

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The UK government has reacted to news that its Scottish counterpart is seeking to intervene against its Supreme Court appeal over the triggering of Article 50.  

Scotland's most senior law officer will apply to be heard in the case, due to take place next month, and is expected to argue that the Scottish Parliament's consent and that of other devolved parliaments must be sought before official Brexit talks begin. 

In a statement, the Department for Exiting the EU said it believed it had strong grounds for its appeal but would continue to engage with the SNP government.  

"It is for the court to decide on whether this intervention will be granted," a spokesman said. "We have been clear that the result of the UK-wide referendum should be respected, and that no part of the UK can have a veto."

More than 30 individuals and companies are being investigated for alleged tax fraud and financial wrongdoing uncovered by the Panama Papers, The Treasury and Home Office have revealed.

In a written statement to MPs, the government said 22 individuals were being investigated for suspected tax evasion stemming from disclosures earlier this year about the activities and clients of Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca.

It said a taskforce set up in April, external had placed 43 "high net-worth" individuals under special review while their links to the Central American country were examined.

Nine "potential professional enablers of economic crime" – all of whom have links with known criminals - have been identified as have 26 offshore companies whose beneficial ownership of British property was previously concealed.

Jennie Granger, director general for customer compliance at Revenue and Customs, said substantial progress was being made in highlighting abuses and pursuing those who were found to be breaking the law.

House of Commons
Parliament

Dame Caroline Spelman rises to speak in her role as Church of England as Second Church Estates Commissioner. She tells the House that the church is the largest provider of education besides the state.

She says she wants to "scotch the myth" that church schools forge segregation. Dame Caroline says most of them do not select and says the church's policy of being "open to all" nurtures cohesion.

House of Lords
Parliament

Minister Lord Keen of Elie says that "improving safety and decreasing violence is a priority" for the government. He says they're recruiting 2,100 more prison officers, 400 more into England and Wales's "10 most challenging prions". 

He says more plans for the service are in the recently released government white paper.

Asking his supplementary question, Labour's Lord Patel of Bradford says a "huge disinvestment" in prisons has led to the situation the service is in today. He adds that drugs are a big problem in prisons and asks what timescale there is for a comprehensive anti-drug and anti-psychoactive substances strategy to be implemented.

Lord Keen of Elie says that the government must address both supply and demand, and "that is a very complex problem". But he says that the government now has a reliable test for psychoactive substances.

House of Lords
Parliament

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Labour peer Lord Patel of Bradford asks the first question of the day, on what is being done to address increasing violence in prisons.

Last week the Prison Officers Association warned of "bloodbaths" in prisons if prison officer numbers were not increased. 

This week a riot at Bedford Prison caused £1m of damage, while an inmate was killed at Pentonville Prison last month. Yesterday, two inmates escaped from the same prison.

House of Commons
Parliament

Labour's Lucy Powell says this is the first time she has spoken in a debate on education since she resigned from the Labour frontbench.

Speaking from the backbenches she tells MPs that she "can't believe we're contemplating selection at age 11 after all the progress we've made". 

Ms Powell says the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) says countries with selective education perform less well.

The debate concerns the government's green paper which lays out their proposals Schools that Work for Everyone, external.  

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The most senior police officer in the UK has apologised to a former MP who was investigated as part of doomed historical sex abuse probe Operation Midland. 

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe has written to Harvey Proctor - who was cleared of being part of a Westminster paedophile ring - to apologise for "significant failings" in the way the investigation was carried out. 

Sir Bernard said "insufficient attempts" had been made to test the credibility of the complainant and that it had been "wrong" to search Mr Proctor's home.

"Now that we have received the final version of Sir Richard Henriques's report I am writing to you formally to convey my apologies for the failings by the Metropolitan Police Service that Sir Richard has identified in the way in which we handled Operation Midland in which you were a suspect," he wrote.

"Sir Richard has concluded, and I accept, that there were significant failings in the way that the Operation Midland investigation was conducted." 

The Henriques inquiry into Operation Midland - which closed in March without a single arrest - found "numerous errors" had been made.

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It's been a big day for Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon and Conservative Party chairman Sir Patrick McLoughlin who have been officially knighted by The Queen at an investiture ceremony in Buckingham Palace. The awards - which are relatively unusual for serving cabinet ministers - were included in David Cameron's resignation honours list. 

House of Commons
Parliament

Education Committee chairman Neil Carmichael rises to discuss the subject on which his committee held an evidence session earlier.

The Conservative MP says "too many schools are suffering because of the unfair allocation" of funding at present.

"Social immobility in this country is just simply too great," he says, with too many young people "trapped".

Increasing school capacity in England by opening more grammar schools could mean "weakening existing grammar schools by actually pulling people from them", he argues.

Image source, Getty Images

Commons Speaker John Bercow has announced a new award to celebrate those who make an "outstanding contribution" to developing democracies around the world.

In a brief statement to the Commons, Mr Bercow said MPs would be invited to propose candidates for the Speaker’s inaugural Democracy Award.

He said it would allow the House to "recognise and celebrate individuals who have made an outstanding contribution to the development of democratic societies and institutions across the world".

Mr Bercow said one of his priorities as Speaker was to support the development of emerging democracies.

He said all parliamentarians had a duty to support and champion those fighting for democracy "in what are often difficult and challenging situations".