Image source, Parliamentlive.tv

MacNeil now asks if the Conservatives should stop sending big donors to the House of Lords.

Boris Johnson replies that "these are men and women who have contributed to public life".

He says until Labour gives up trade union money or parties are entirely publicly funded, we need to continue with the system by which public spirited people give donations to parties.

Trade Committee chair Angus MacNeil (an SNP MP) asks if trade deals with New Zealand and Australia will make up for trade lost following Brexit.

Johnson says the deals will offer good opportunities for Scottish beef and whisky producers.

"Numbers," demands MacNeil.

The PM accuses the SNP of having been "against every free trade deal ever done".

Image source, Parlimentlive.tv

In a question about security and rising threats posed by Russia and climate change, Tobias Ellwood asks if defence spending is "out of date" and should be increased to 3% of the Budget.

The prime minister pushes back and defends the current spending level after Ellwood challenges him further on cuts to the British military.

Ellwood passionately makes the case that funding cuts, troop and equipment reductions are wrong at a time "when bigger threats are coming over the horizon".

Boris Johnson says: "I think our investments in new technology are absolutely indispensable to our ability to fight wars of the 21st Century.

"And I don't think that going back to a 1940s-style approach will serve us."

Reality Check

The government has reduced the amount it spends on overseas aid (which it refers to as Official Development Assistance or ODA) from 0.7% of GNI (a measure of the size of the economy) to 0.5%.

The prime minister told the liaison committee that in spite of that cut: “We’re still spending £10bn in ODA this year… we are the third largest ODA donor in the G7 as a percentage of GNI.”

The UK’s spending on ODA is actually likely to be closer to £11bn this year.

The UK is indeed expected to be the third biggest spender on ODA (as a percentage of GNI) in the G7 group of big, industrialised economies this year, behind Germany and France.

Last year the UK was in second place, ahead of France.

You can read more about UK aid spending cuts here.

Tobias Ellwood moves on to ask the prime minister what military assistance can be provided to the Ukraine and Poland deter the threat of Russia.

Boris Johnson responds by answering the two cases are very different, as Poland has backing as part of the NATO alliance - which Ukraine does not.

"What we've got to do is make sure everybody understands the cost of miscalculation on the borders," the PM says.

Chair of the Defence Committee and Tory MP Tobias Ellwood asks if the government should be doing more to tackle online radicalisation.

Boris Johnson says there is always more that can be done to combat extremist radicalisation.

He adds they must be "much more ruthless" at joining the dots together about people who are being radicalised, in order to prevent future terrorist attacks.

Image source, Parliamentlive.tv

Stephen Timms returns to the issue of the draft Online Safety Bill - the mega-bill on regulating the internet that should enter Parliament soon.

The Labour MP asks what more can be done in the bill to clamp down on online scams.

Boris Johnsons says he will look into this but cautions that the legislation "can't deal with every ill caused by the internet".

Next up is Labour’s Stephen Timms, who chairs the Work and Pensions Committee.

He asks whether there should have been additional help for people who are not in work, or cannot work, in the government's plans to cushion the blow of a £20-a-week universal credit cut that came in this autumn.

After pressure over the cut, the government announced plans at the Budget to change the "taper rate" - meaning claimants can keep a bigger slice of the wages they earn above a certain threshold.

Boris Johnson defends the government's plan, adding its ambition is to "encourage people into work".

You can read people's reaction to losing the £20-a-week uplift here.

And you can read more about the taper rate here.

Image source, Getty Images

Mel Stride asks if the PM is worried about inflation if wages rise without a productivity increase.

Earlier today, it was revealed that the cost of living has surged at its fastest pace in almost 10 years, hitting 4.2% in the year to October.

Johnson says his government is investing in skills, training and infrastructure to increase productivity.

Stride says the government has been "talking up wages" and warns that rising inflation could produce a "wage-price spiral" leading to "devastating consequences on national finances".

Johnson tells the MP: "You are over-egging what the government has been doing" but adds that he believes people should be paid fairly.

Image source, Parliamentlive.tv

Chair of the Treasury Committee (and Conservative MP) Mel Stride quotes the PM describing himself as a "low tax" Conservative.

"How do you square that with the latest Budget producing the highest levels of tax in the post-war period," he asks.

Johnson says the government had to spend money to help people through a pandemic.

Stride asks how the PM can stick by his promise to get taxes down by the end of this Parliament.

The PM says the government will be helped by unemployment being lower and growth being better than forecasted.

In Sarah Champion's final question, she asks the PM whether he is "giving with one hand and taking away with the other" to developing nations over climate aid.

She points to the 62% cut to Bangladesh's aid and a 55% cut in aid to Ethiopia from the UK over the next year.

Boris Johnson denies this and says they are "making a massive commitment to climate finance".

He says the UK is one of the largest foreign aid budgets in the G7 group of wealthy nations, despite a "temporary" cut in foreign aid due to the pandemic.

Image source, Parliamentlive.tv

Back at the committee, Labour's Sarah Champion moves on to climate change aid.

She asks Boris Johnson what proportion of the £12.6bn the UK has committed at COP26 to help developing nations will go on what is known as "loss and damage" payments.

The PM says he can't give her the exact figure, but says the "loss and damage" section was a key part of how they got the Glasgow Climate pact over the line.

Over in the Commons, where MPs are debating Labour's motion on MPs' second jobs, the SNP's Pete Wishart says most people would see MPs' pay as "above generous" and question why some of them need to do second jobs.

The current annual salary is £81,932.

Wishart calls Parliament a "cesspit" of corruption, which provokes an angry reaction from Conservative Sir Charles Walker, who rejects the claim as "outrageous".

Sarah Champion moves on to asking the PM about the situation in Afghanistan and the delivery of UK aid.

The prime minister says the government has doubled its aid to Afghanistan and is looking in to delivering it as quickly as possible.

He is then questioned about how the aid will be delivered given much of the work is done by women, whose rights have been curtailed by the Taliban government.

The PM says the UK government is engaging with the Taliban to ensure the aid is delivered where it is needed.

Image source, Parliamentlive.tv

Labour chair of the International Development Committee Sarah Champion is up next, asking about relationship education in primary schools.

She says it should have been mandatory since September 2020 and is not as yet. But, she adds, it is key to combatting violence against women and girls.

Boris Johnson says he will look into it and get back her.

Reality Check

The prime minister was asked at the Liaison Committee earlier what he was doing to improve the prosecution of rape cases.

One of the measures he mentioned was: “We’re investing, I think, about £85m more into prosecutors for the CPS.”

The government announced the extra £85m for the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) over two years in August 2019, although that was to help tackle violent crime in general, not just rape.

But even with the extra money, in 2020-21, the overall funding of the service was still below 2010 levels.

And if you adjust for inflation, the 2020-21 funding of the CPS was about 26% down from where it was in 2010-11.

Conservative MP Neil Parish, who chairs the Rural Affairs Committee, asks what more can be done to help farmers reduce their methane gas emissions.

Boris Johnson says there has been "considerable progress" made in new farming technology, meaning this can be done without "jeopardising" the quality of British meat.

Parish then asks whether the UK could toughen its laws to stop financial institutions funding deforestation.

The prime minister says yes - and points out that around 40 financial groups pledged to take measures to stop this happening at the COP26 conference.

Image source, Parliamentlive.tv

Conservative Bernard Jenkin asks if lessons learnt from the Covid pandemic about the machinery of government can be applied to tackling climate change post-COP26.

Johnson says the government is producing 10 road maps for each of the areas it wants to address, such as promoting the use of electric vehicles.

Jenkin says the pandemic proved that "if you produce real data to engage the public you can achieve miracles".

The PM replies that the government has "a delivery unit" for climate change, which is studying the data and "chivying everybody".

Asked if the government is taking a "joined up approach" to tackling climate change by Philip Dunne, Boris Johnson says the whole of government is working together.

"You can see the efforts in the result we are producing," he adds.

The PM says they are seeing record investment in green technology, reducing carbon emissions and creating "many thousands of jobs".

Reality Check

Image source, Reuters

Earlier in the committee session, Boris Johnson returned to the question of whether he wore a mask throughout his visit to Hexham Hospital on 8 November, saying: “There was barely 30 seconds when I wasn't wearing a mask.”

When previously asked about it at a news conference on 15 November, he said: "I wear a mask wherever the rules say that I should."

He has now changed that to admit to having briefly not worn a mask, saying he had "put it on as soon as I realised I had made that mistake - I apologise for it".

The rules throughout the Northumbria NHS Trust are that "anyone attending our hospitals and community settings must continue to wear a face-covering at all times to protect patients, visitors and staff".

A statement issued by the hospital trust, although not given to the press, agreed he had walked along a corridor “for a very short period of time, without a mask” and that “this brief moment was captured on camera”.