The head of Surrey Council, David Hodge, has told BBC Surrey there was "never" any deal with government over social care funding "end of story".

There will be more to come from this interview later. 

No 10 has defended the UK's decision to limit the number of unaccompanied child refugees it will take in from across Europe under a new scheme to 350.

A Downing Street spokesman said the UK had a "long and proud" record of offering sanctuary to victims of persecution and conflict.

He said the UK, all told, had taken in more than 8,000 unaccompanied children from around the world, including 900 from Europe last year.

He said no figure had been stipulated in the Dubs amendment and the feedback from councils was that they could only accommodate 350.

The leader of Surrey Council said a planned 15% council tax rise was scaled down to 4.99% after "assurances" from the government, adding that the council was "working with the government on various issues". 

David Hodge was speaking to the BBC on Tuesday, before Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn read out what he said were Councillor Hodge's leaked text messages on the subject during PMQs.

Asked what had been said to convince him not to press ahead with a 15% rise, he said: "Well sometimes it's best to say nothing. Sometimes I can't say too much. But I am a lot more confident now about the future."

After the PMQs clash, Councillor Hodge and Downing Street both said despite Mr Corbyn's allegations no "sweetheart deal" had been done to avoid the required referendum on the increase.

It will be impossible to monitor the Irish border's crossing points post-Brexit, says the Irish Ambassador to the UK.

Image source, Reuters

There has been a mixed reaction to the news that the UK will welcome only 350 unaccompanied child refugees from across Europe under an existing scheme.

The Green Party said the figure - which amounts to less than one refugee per local authority in the UK - was an "absolute disgrace".

Its co-leader Jonathan Bartley said ministers should have done much more to support local councils and provide the funding needed to give sanctuary to the 3,000 children originally recommended by campaigners.

But the Local Government Association, which speaks on behalf of councils in England and Wales, said local authorities had shown real leadership in resettling children from the Calais 'Jungle' camp in the UK, with each child getting personalised support, including medical assistance.  

Talk of a special deal between the government and Surrey County Council over care funding is "cloud cuckoo land", Tory MP Sir Paul Beresford has said.

The MP for Mole Valley told the BBC that any special arrangement on top of the original grant settlement agreed with the council would have had to have been approved by MPs.

This simply wouldn't have happened, he says, as it would set a precedent for other councils that are in financial difficulties. 

Asked why the Council had abandoned plans for a referendum on raising council tax by 15%, Sir Paul said the Conservative-controlled local authority was competent and would have realised such a proposition was a "kamikaze flight" and would have damaged the party's prospects in this May's elections. 

Dominic Casciani
Home Affairs Correspondent

Image source, EPA

A key legal route into the UK for children caught up in Europe's migrant crisis is to close after a total of 350 arrivals.

In a written ministerial statement, the Home Office said it would stop receiving children via the so-called "Dubs Amendment" at the end of March.

The law, designed by peer and ex-refugee Lord Dubs, aimed to help some of the estimated 90,000 unaccompanied migrant children stranded across Europe.

This afternoon the peer, who won cross-party support for the plan, warned ministers that abandoning the route would be "shameful".

A legal challenge to how the government has handled the legal commitment will go ahead on Friday.

Ministers accepted the Dubs amendment last year after months of pressure from campaigners and members of the public to take children from the "Jungle" migrant camp in Calais.

The amendment to the Immigration Act required the Home Secretary to bring a specified number of unaccompanied refugee children to the UK after consultation with local authorities.

In today's statement, Immigration Minister Robert Goodwill said 200 had already arrived and a further 150 children would follow before the end of March, filling the available places offered by local authorities.

A further 700 unaccompanied children had arrived in the UK under separate EU-wide rules designed to reunite families.

Separately, the UK has settled 4,400 individuals directly from Syria under an international programme, half of whom are children.

Responding to the decision, Lord Dubs said: "Britain has a proud history of welcoming refugees. At a time when Donald Trump is banning refugees from America, it would be shameful if the UK followed suit by closing down this route to sanctuary for unaccompanied children just months after it was opened."

"During the Kindertransport, Sir Nicky Winton rescued 669 children from Nazi persecution virtually single-handedly. I was one of those lucky ones. It would be a terrible betrayal of his legacy if as a country we were unable to do more than this to help a new generation of child refugees.

He is urging Theresa May to build on the current scheme "not shut the door to some of the most vulnerable refugee children". 

House of Commons
Parliament

Labour's Jess Phillips tells MPs about her "favourite moment" in the government's white paper:

"Britain has sovereignty but it hasn't always felt like it."

She says this sentence reminds her of how her children talk. She adds "we've really made Britain look like a petulant teen".

What the white paper doesn't mention, she says, is FGM or domestic violence.

Specifically she seeks reassurance that UK citizens will continue to be able to use European protection orders which protect victims from perpetrators when they travel to the EU.

The SNP's leader at Westminster, Angus Robertson, says the UK government does not have UK-wide backing to trigger Article 50.

Select Committee
Parliament

Conservative MP Richard Bacon claims Hilary Benn, who was a Labour International Development Secretary, said that "trade and business and the private sector will do far more to lift people out of poverty than anything else".

He suggests that CDC's work could help people "in that grey zone" below - in income terms - those who have been lifted out of poverty.

"I think that is fair," says Mark Lowcock from the Department for International Development (DfID).

"I don't normally help witnesses, by the way," Mr Bacon adds.

CDC chairman Graham Wrigley describes DfID as an "engaged and active shareholder".

House of Commons
Parliament

Conservative Steve Baker uses his speech to address the amendments which call on the government to seek to maintain UK's participation in Euratom.

The government's Brexit white paper confirmed that the UK would leave Euratom, a European nuclear cooperation institution covering safeguard arrangements and the movement of nuclear materials. 

The amendments, he says, are unnecessary and counterproductive. 

"Anything to do with a nuclear system focuses the mind like nothing else," he says and tries to assure opposition MPs that the government will make continued cooperation on nuclear matters a priority. 

As fresh claims emerge that universal credit delays are leading to repossessions, its architect defends the system.

Image source, House of Commons

The architect of the troubled universal credit (UC) system says it could take "decades" to get it working at its most effective level.

Lord Freud defended the system to MPs holding an urgent session over fresh concerns many claimants were being pushed into rent arrears and eviction.

UC collapses all benefits into one and is being rolled out in England.

At the hearing earlier on Wednesday, Work and Pensions committee chairman Frank Field said some claimants were having their lives wrecked by UC.

He challenged Lord Freud over his claim that many UC claimants who were in rent arrears after being transferred from old-style benefits had brought their arrears with them. Read more

House of Commons
Parliament

Labour's Caroline Flint touches on immigration during her speech.

She says that the benefits of immigration have not been spread across the country and that politicians failed to address that problem. 

Labour MP and former immigration minister Liam Byrne intervenes to says that when he was in government it was clear that there could have been consensus on freedom of movement reform across the EU. 

"If only we'd pursued it then," he says.

However he also criticises the former Prime Minister, David Cameron, for failing to pursue such reform "until his back was against the wall".

House of Lords
Parliament

Conservative Lord Tebbit suggests that to call a shortage of lettuce a "crisis", as some have, shows a "lack of understanding of the meaning of the words in the English language".

Minister Lord Gardiner of Kimble agrees it is not a "crisis". 

Supplies of the worst affected vegetable - iceberg lettuce - will be affected for around two months, he says.

Image source, Reuters

A total of 350 child refugees will be brought to Britain from Europe under the so-called Dubs Amendment, the government has announced. 

The number is well below the 3,000 unaccompanied minors that campaigners and politicians originally called for the UK to accept through the scheme. 

Ministers introduced the programme last year after coming under intense pressure to give sanctuary to lone children stranded on the Continent. 

Calls for the measure were spearheaded by Labour peer Lord Dubs, whose amendment to the Immigration Act requires the government to "make arrangements to relocate to the UK and support a specified number of unaccompanied refugee children from other countries in Europe". 

The legislation did not specify a figure but on Wednesday Immigration Minister Robert Goodwill, in a written ministerial statement, said 350 children will be transferred under the initiative. 

House of Lords
Parliament

Image source, Victoria Jones/PA Wire

Labour frontbencher Baroness Jones of Whitchurch asks what steps the government is taking in response to the restricted availability of imported vegetables from Spain.

Bad weather in Spain and Italy has led to shortages of a number of vegetables including courgettes, tomatoes, lettuce, broccoli and peppers. The UK imports half of its veg and 90% of its fruit.

Minister Lord Gardiner of Kimble says the UK has a "highly resilient food industry" with effective supply chains.

He adds that the "situation is improving" in Spain and Italy, and there are good alternative supplies available from the Americas and Africa.

But he adds that an effective replacement are "our own wonderful, nutritious British vegetables" to cheers from peers.

House of Commons
Parliament

House of Commons
Parliament

Conservative Kit Malthouse criticises the opposition's amendment which sets out the aims the government should have when negotiating an exit.

It is a "very long shopping list" he says but notes that they have forgotten to include reminders to the prime minister to "breathe and keep her eyes open".

He also accuses the opposition amendments of being vague.

He notes that the amendent includes the phrase "the prime minister shall give an undertaking to have regard to the public interest during negotiations..."

To whom should she give an undertaking? he asks.

"This House? Her husband?"

He suggests that if the opposition had been more focused and collaborated better "they might have made some progress".