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Yvette Cooper, chair of the Home Affairs Committee, says the motion proposes certainty for businesses and on Northern Ireland peace. She says the government is "running out of time" on providing clarity on what will happen to British borders, especially making sure that they are timely and sufficiently staffed.

The debate is trying to put options on the table for debate, she says.

"It clearly doesn't solve all of the problems and challenges we face, but it is an important part," she adds.

At Dover, 400 lorries go on and off the ferries to France, she says. The UK does more than £230bn of trade with the EU every year, she says, and manufacturing is dependent on the fast movement of goods.

A few minutes of border checks at Dover would cause 17 miles of tailbacks, she states.

Responding to an intervention from Brexiteer John Redwood on UK trade increasing with the rest of the world, Ms Cooper points out that trade with the rest of the world is increasing even though the UK is currently in the EU customs union.

"Geography matters, gravity matters," she says, adding that the best markets for the UK are the ones closest to home.

House of Commons
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With the two statements now finished, MPs move on to debate a non-binding motion calling on the government to include as a negotiating objective with the EU "the establishment of an effective customs union between the two territories".

Theresa May has ruled out joining a customs union, but Labour, the Lib Dems and the SNP, plus a handful of Tories, are in favour of having one in some form.

It comes after ministers were defeated on the issue in the House of Lords and ahead of key votes in the Commons later.

House of Commons
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Liberal Democrat Tom Brake says if ministers were serious about boosting housing provision, they would be "congratulating" councils which are building homes for the first time in 30 years.

Mel Stride says he has been congratulating house building, and that the government has built more council housing since 2010 than Labour did during its 13 years in office.

House of Commons
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Shadow Treasury Minister, Anneliese Dodds, says there are still loopholes preventing stamp duty collection for those buying property in bulk in order to let it out.

She says cutting stamp duty does more to help the people who own homes, rather than those buying them. "Genuinely affordable" housing stock is at its lowest level, she adds.

Mr Stride says the government believes that housing policy "is one of the great issues of our age".

He says there were 217,000 new homes on the market last year, which, he adds, is getting close to the government's target of 300,000 annually.

House of Commons
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Mel Stride says the changes mean "over 80%" of first-time buyers will no longer pay stamp duty.

It is "only right" to reduce upfront costs for people buying their first home, he says.

He says 69,000 first-time buyers have benefited from the relief since it came in, representing 20% of total residential transactions.

This is "broadly in line" with official estimates made at the time, he adds.

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Financial Secretary to the Treasury Mel Stride is now updating MPs on an abolition of stamp duty for first-time buyers introduced during the Budget last November.

Under the plans, no stamp duty is paid on the first £300,000 for properties costing up to £500,000.

Today, the government announced that 69,000 first-time buyers have since bought properties without paying the tax.

The government have also announced that 387,000 people have taken advantage of Help to Buy ISA schemes.

House of Commons
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Liberal Democrat Tom Brake asks how IT innovation that "flows currently" around the EU will continue in the UK after Brexit.

The EU investment fund in British startups was £500m in 2016 and has since dropped, he says - and asks if UK government funds will match this.

Margot James replies that some companies have invested "substantially" in the UK, and the government has doubled the number of exceptional talent visas on offer.

Scientists who have come to the country on so-called Tier One visas have been offered "full settlement rights at three years", she adds.

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Shadow digital economy minister Liam Byrne says it is good of the minister to "show up and present her plans that were presented to the Times newspaper rather than to Parliament first".

The governments, he notes, have already announced policies for AI.

He says the plans include no new money, but the earmarking of existing money that has already been given to research firms.

He says UK science spending is "second league", the country's digital networks are "lamentable" and the digital skills base is "alarmingly thin".

Margot James accuses Mr Byrne of being "overwhelmingly negative", adding that the government is ranked top in this area by the Oxford Insights' AI survey.

"The UK is in a very competitive position in terms of digital performance", she states, adding that the UK now has 95% connectivity to superfast broadband.

Select Committee
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Labour's Ian Lucas asks Mike Schroepfer to confirm that Cambridge Analytica certified to Facebook they had deleted the data they had from GSR.

"That is my understanding" says Mr Schroepfer.

Mr Lucas asks him to provide the documents.

"I will check with the legal team...I'm assuming that we can", Mr Schroepfer tells him.

Mike Schroepfer says "multiple parties" were involved, including Dr Aleksandr Kogan, Christopher Wylie and Cambridge Analytica. "There may have been one other", he adds.

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Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Minister Margot James says AI holds "transformative potential for every aspect of our lives" and could increase 10% of UK GDP by 2030 if adoption is widespread.

UK is top rated on the Oxford Insights' AI Readiness Index, external, she says.

The government are doubling Tier 1 exceptional talent visas to attract the brightest minds to the UK, she adds, as well as investing over £1bn in 5G connectivity and full fibre broadband.

You can read more on the AI sector deal, here, external.

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Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Minister Margot James is unveiling the Artificial Intelligence Sector Deal to the House of Commons.

The deal is an agreement between the government and the Artificial Intelligence sector.

The government says that creating an economy which harnesses artificial intelligence and big data is "one of the great opportunities of our age".

Big data is the term often used to describe when a business looks at trends using computer software in vast quantities of data. Big data benefits the healthcare sector, for example, where collection of patient records with a certain type of condition can be used to explore trends in effective treatment.

The government has announced £20m in funding for research and development into artificial intelligence in the UK; and it is investing £93m in the robotics and AI programme for "extreme environments".

House of Lords
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Labour spokesman Lord Beecham asks the government how it will reduce the backlog of Employment Tribunal hearings that has arisen since the Supreme Court ruling in July 2017 that the high level of fees previously levied was unlawful.

He says the mediation service Acas is "overwhelmed" by demand and calls for action to address that "justice delayed is justice denied is being exemplified" by the current system.

Ministry of Justice spokesman Lord Keen of Elie says the government wants to see cases dealt with "swiftly and effectively", and is taking action by setting aside days for tribunals and recruiting 54 more tribunal judges.

He notes there has been a "significant increase" in applications for tribunals since the Supreme Court ruling.

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Labour's Jo Stevens asks Mike Schroepfer why Facebook threatened to sue The Guardian last month "when previously you acted on information that they had given to you to show that GSR had compromised Facebook users' data".

Mr Schroepfer explained Facebook sent The Guardian a letter to "correct some facts they had in the article... it's a fairly standard legal letter".

"The implication that we're trying to make these things hidden, I think it's a fair question, it is not what we intend to do."

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House of Lords
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It's time for questions to ministers in the Lords and Labour spokesperson Baroness Jones of Whitchurch asks how the role of the Food Standards Agency will be enhanced after Brexit.

She questions whether the FSA will have the resources to keep us safe given the role of EU bodies such as the European Food Standards Agency in protecting us from mis-labelling and contamination.

Health Minister Lord O'Shaughnessy tells her the government is "committed to the highest standards of food safety" and there will be a "robust regulatory regime" after Brexit.

The FSA has a "stable" funding settlement and the government has committed to "beefing up the food crime unit", he adds.

Another Labour peer, Lord Rooker, asks how the Rapid Alert System is going to operate on day one of Brexit.

The Rapid Alert System enables exchange of information between European countries and the European Commission about dangerous non-food products posing a risk to health and safety of consumers.

The minister says the UK will "continue to get the alert system in implementation period" but its future after that is a matter for the negotiations aimed at securing a "deep and special relationship" with the EU - which draws some groans and laughter from the opposition.

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SNP business spokesperson Pete Wishart asks if the "government is going to come out to play today?" on the day's customs union vote, and that it can't "keep hiding".

He says this has been a "black, black week for devolution", referring to the fact that the Scottish Parliament may be overruled over the EU Withdrawal Bill.

Ms Leadsom says the government is "fully" taking part in the debate this afternoon. "It will certainly be very interesting to hear views from right across the House" on what should be the UK's approach, she says.

She says the government is seeking to devolve "as many powers as possible" to the devolved nations while protecting the UK's own "integrity".

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Shadow Leader of the House, Valerie Vaz says Labour is sure that the government must know how many people have been deported as a part of the Windrush scandal as they know how many letters have been sent out.

She says the Brexit Secretary, David Davis, broke parliamentary protocol on his Northern Irish border visit, she says this is evidence of "more chaos".

Finally, she asks when the Commons will get the EU Withdrawal Bill from the Lords.

Ms Leadsom says that Windrush "is really serious and very regrettable unintended consequence" of the intentions of "many governments" to try and restrict illegal immigration.

She adds that "all members should seek to give notice when they visit one another's constituencies" but this was "an administrative oversight" for which he has apologised.

The EU Withdrawal Bill is due to be back in the Commons within the next few weeks, she adds.