Select Committee
Parliament

Opening the session, committee chair Yvette Cooper asks the home secretary if she agrees with President Trump's travel ban.

"Yes, and I agree with the position the government has taken," says Amber Rudd in response.

The home secretary tells the committee that she heard about the executive order over the weekend, "more or less when everyone else did." 

Ms Rudd also confirms that she had made representations to her US counterpart, in a substantial telephone conversation yesterday, and also highlighted the "response" that was taking place in London and in the UK that day.

Select Committee
Parliament

Labour's former deputy leader Harriet Harman has said Donald Trump's state visit to the UK should be cancelled.

Ms Harman, a leading equality campaigner who is head of Parliament's human rights joint committee, said Theresa May should “take back control and cancel the visit”.

Speaking at a Press Gallery lunch in Westminster, she said: "Donald Trump thinks women are there to be pushed around and she has got to show him that she is not going to be pushed around.”

She added the US President had “torn-up” the old rules, adding “we are in post-protocol politics. It is no good doing it the old way. 

"She should show that she is a woman who will stand up for herself and stand up for this country.”

Speaking about her own party, Harriet Harman said she felt "painful echoes" of when Labour was in the "wilderness years" during the 1980s.

“If you fight against among yourselves people think you don’t care about them. "That is a painful echo of now.”

Ms Harman, who was acting leader of her party on two occasions, also said she would be voting in favour of triggering Article 50 but conceded Jeremy Corbyn faced “no good choices” when deciding Labour’s position on Brexit.

She joked that she had had to write to her constituency members to explain why she felt the need to vote with the whip. Her constituency of Camberwell and Peckham voted to remain in last June’s EU referendum.

The Labour grandee also commented on the announcement that Peter Capaldi is standing down as Dr Who. She insisted she wanted a female Doctor Who, with a man as her assistant.

Select Committee
Parliament

In a few moments, the Home Affairs Committee will meet to take evidence on the implications of the UK leaving the EU.

In the witness chairs are Home Secretary Amber Rudd and Glyn Williams, from the Home Office immigration and Border Policy Directorate.

As protests continue over President's Trump's planned state visit, who else was granted one - and why?

A Welsh MP urges the authorities to stop Donald Trump from addressing parliament during his state visit to the UK.

House of Commons
Parliament

Conservative MP Julian Lewis makes the shortest contribution so far, saying simply: "The people have decided and I'm going to vote accordingly."

He is followed by Labour MP Gisela Stuart, a senior member of the Vote Leave campaign.

She says the vote last June was about "taking back control of our borders" and having an "economic policy based not on geography but on skills and on economic need".

Ms Stuart also urges the government to spend money not sent to the EU on the NHS, as the Leave campaign suggested. However, while the campaign used a gross figure of £350m, which was much-criticised, the Labour MP says the amount is around £100m.

The MP for Birmingham Edgbaston, who was born in Munich, says she is happy to consider herself British "but I will never be English". 

She claims that a "need to overcome the darker side of nationalism with supra-nationalism is not something the British people have ever felt", though some MPs murmur disagreement.

She also believes that leaving the EU is "the logical conclusion of Maastricht" as the UK did not join the euro or the Schengen passport-free travel area.

House of Commons
Parliament

Labour MP Meg Hillier says she will vote against the bill.

She claims that this is not because she does not recognise the referendum result, but because "I cannot walk blindly through a lobby to give a trigger to a process without a shred of detail from the government".

She adds that constituents of hers from other EU states are "fearful" and warns: "We should be wary of turning on foreigners in our midst at this time."

Fellow Labour MP Owen Smith intervenes to claim it is "tantamount to torture" that EU citizens in the UK have not had their right to stay guaranteed.

Brexit Secretary David Davis urges MPs to trust voters' verdict on leaving the EU.

House of Commons
Parliament

Conservative MP Dominic Grieve says he is in Parliament to consider "the national interest" and Parliament should not "obstruct" the referendum decision.

But he calls for a policy document on the government's Brexit plan: "That white paper has got to be there before we come to the committee stage."

Mr Grieve, a former Attorney General who supports EU membership, says of the referendum result: "I think we have made a grave error and I think it is one that will become more apparent with the passage of time."

House of Commons
Parliament

DUP MP Sammy Wilson says his party will be voting to trigger Article 50.

He says he campaigned to leave the EU and "my constituents, by 55% to 45%, took my advice".

Sylvia Hermon, the independent MP for North Down, says a majority of voters in Northern Ireland voted to remain and asks how the DUP "propose to respect that fact".

Mr Wilson says he campaigned "as a member of the UK Parliament" which represents the whole UK, and "not on some narrow regional basis".

Scotland or Wales or Northern Ireland alone do not have the right to tell the entire United Kingdom what to do, he argues. This would be "detrimental to the union".

Keir Starmer's speech at the start of the Brexit debate has been praised by a number of Conservative MPs - one describing it as the most thoughtful speech on Europe by a Labour politician for ages.

But New Statesman political correspondent George Eaton has a rather different take on the eminent lawyer's contribution. 

House of Commons
Parliament

Labour MP Dame Rosie Winterton urges the government to use Brexit as a chance to "look again at how our labour market operates".

Workers' rights and the labour market will be the subject at a forthcoming Labour Party conference on Brexit in a few weeks' time, she says.

And Dame Rosie, who is a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, external, calls on the ministers to confirm that the UK "will not be withdrawing from the European Convention on Human Rights and the Council of Europe".

The Council of Europe, external is a group of European nations and is completely separate from the European Union.

House of Commons
Parliament

Conservative MP John Redwood says leaving the EU means "we have power to make our own choices".

Of opponents of the bill, the former cabinet minister asks: "What is it about freedom they don't like? What is it about having power back in our Parliament that they cannot stand?"

He claims that a vote for the bill is a vote to make Parliament "sovereign again".

The terms of Brexit will be decided by the other 27 EU states, MP Geraint Davies says.

MPs will also debate a rival petition calling for the state visit to go ahead in the name of freedom of speech.

This petition has garnered 115,000 signatures, more than the 100,000 threshold at which a petition has to be considered for debate in the Commons.

The debate, to be staged in Westminster Hall, will be opened by Labour MP Paul Flynn. 

He also spoke first in a debate last year on whether Mr Trump, before he became president, should be allowed to enter the UK at all. 

MPs will debate calls for Donald Trump's proposed state visit to the UK to be abandoned.

It comes after the Commons petitions committee chose it for discussion, with it scheduled for 20 February.

The petition has attracted more than 1.6 million signatures. It says Mr Trump should be allowed to visit the UK but not accorded the trappings of a state visit - including a special address to Parliament and a state banquet hosted by the Queen. 

House of Commons
Parliament

Although her constituency voted "overwhelmingly for remain", Labour's Kate Hoey, who campaigned for Brexit, will be voting to trigger Article 50, she confirms.

Ms Hoey says that there have been some "pretty dreadful things said" to people like her, who voted to leave the EU.

She praises Sir Keir Starmer's acknowledgement that the issue of the invocation of Article 50 is "difficult" for Labour, but is pleased that her party will support the bill.

"In my view, it is all about taking back control of our own country."