House of Commons
Parliament

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Conservative backbencher Heidi Allen says she is confident the work and pensions secretary will listen to constructive advice from the House.

She says citizens and taxpayers deserve "excellence" in their dealings with the Department for Work and Pensions.

She says the Conservatives want Universal Credit to work and getting it right will help "millions of people".

However, there is one warning to the government to "release working age claimants from the benefit freeze".

Select Committee
Parliament

Mr Fox emphasises that a deal has not yet been done, so he cannot definitively answer questions about how post-Brexit trade will operate.

Labour's Chris Leslie speculates that if the UK is signed up to a "common rule book" on goods with the EU, the only point of Mr Fox's job will be to make deals on services.

Mr Fox says services are very important. But Mr Leslie points out that no multilateral deals on services exist outside of customs unions.

Select Committee
Parliament

International Trade Secretary Liam Fox is taking questions on his work and that of his department.

The SNP chairman, Angus Brendan O'Neill, thanks Mr Fox for appearing during an "interesting week" and asks how the Chequers agreement will affect Mr Fox's ability to make trade deals post-Brexit.

Mr Fox says he will still be able to make agreements while keeping frictionless trade at the Irish border.

Mr O'Neill asks "what happened to the DExEU Secretary and the Foreign Secretary?" while Labour's Catherine West asks why Mr Fox did not follow his ideological companions out of government.

Mr Fox says that he cannot answer the first question because it is outside his departmental remit, and emphasises his belief in Cabinet collective responsibility.

House of Commons
Parliament

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Labour's Frank Field stands up to apologise to the work and pensions secretary for not immediately objecting to the comments made about her by the now-shadow chancellor in 2014.

Speaking at a comedy night, John McDonnell quoted someone saying they wanted to "lynch" Esther McVey, who was then the employment minister.

She responds that she regrets the apology has not come from the front bench and calls on the House to work together to get Universal Credit right.

Getting back to the detail of the benefit system, Mr Field says that while he accepts people must pay their debts, it should not be a choice between that or feeding their children.

House of Commons
Parliament

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The SNP's social justice spokesperson Neil Gray says that this week there are more reports "all condemning the current incarnation of Universal Credit".

He says that the NAO says the department will never be able to work out if Universal Credit has saved money for the taxpayer.

He asks Ms McVey to assess the readiness of the department for further roll out and to ensure it can cope with a higher volume of claimants.

"These are not debating points, they are facts," he says.

The government's own figures show that 40% of Universal Credit recipients are in poverty, he says, and he asks the Chancellor to invest more in the benefits system.

Colour scheme on Parliament's clock tower is to revert to its original design as part of £61m repair.

House of Commons
Parliament

The motion being debated calls for the work and pensions secretary to be "sanctioned" by having her pay reduced to zero for four weeks, in the same way that Universal Credit claimants can lose out if they do not meet their responsibilities.

This comes after Esther McVey apologised for "inadvertently misleading" MPs last week when she claimed that the National Audit Office believed the Universal Credit benefit should be rolled out faster.

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The shadow work and pensions secretary Margaret Greenwood, who has been speaking for the motion in the Commons, defeated Ms McVey in the Wirral West constituency at the 2015 general election.

The then-employment minister was out of the House of Commons for two years, before taking over George Osborne's Tatton seat in last year's election.

House of Commons
Parliament

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Work and Pensions Secretary Esther McVey says that under Universal Credit, six different benefits are brought together in a system where claimants receive "tailored support" to help them get back into work.

It is a system which has stopped people from having to contact different government services to get all their benefits, she says.

She says that where the government has had to slow down to roll-out the benefit, it has done so.

She accuses Labour of scaremongering over poverty during the Christmas period.

She says that she has made her apology "straight away" following the letter. She adds that she is still waiting for an apology for a comment made by John McDonnell that she "should be lynched".

Mr McDonnell made the comments to a Stop The War event on Remembrance Sunday in 2014.

She says she is prepared to apologise, when Labour are not.

House of Commons
Parliament

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The Commons has moved onto the first Labour motion of the afternoon - the rest of the day will be taken up with Opposition Day debates.

The motion calls for the Secretary of State, Esther McVey, to take a pay cut for four weeks as a result of the financial hardship she has brought on other people in her handling of Universal Credit.

Shadow work and pensions secretary Margaret Greenwood says that it is uncertain if Universal Credit will ever deliver value for money. The NAO report, external also criticises the weeks-long delay in payments to new claimants.

She says that Ms McVey gave the response to the report on a Thursday so that fewer MPs would be around to respond.

And she says that the Comptroller General of the NAO had to take the "extraordinary step" of writing an open letter to Ms McVey in order to correct the record on certain aspects of her statement.

House of Commons
Parliament

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Labour's Eleanor Smith is introducing a Ten Minute Rule Bill which would reintroduce the secretary of state's accountability for the NHS in England.

It would also seek to ban the NHS from international trade agreements and PFI contracts.

It aims to "take private profit out of the NHS", she says, while intending to make sure "the NHS is properly funded" and can provide people with proper care.

The bill will end nearly 30 years of privatisation, she adds.

It will also prevent "asset stripping", she adds, saying that "for decades" there has undermining of the NHS's values.

"These are our hospitals, paid for by our taxes," she says, "they are not for the government to give away."

House of Commons
Parliament

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Liberal Democrat Jamie Stone says some of these people will face lengthy deployments of months or even longer, which can be stressful for families.

He asks for a leave rota to enable soldiers to come back at regular intervals.

Mr Williamson says they will be working with all forces to ensure that the usual leave of two weeks for a six month tour and three weeks for a nine month tour are available.

House of Commons
Parliament

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The SNP's defence spokesperson, Stewart M. McDonald asks for more information on the timetable for how long this deployment will last, and if it is a "long term or a short term increase". He asks further for regular updates.

Mr Williamson says this will be a "conditions based approach" on how long troops will stay.

There is a "real willingness and an eagerness" to sit around the table for negotiations in the country, he adds.

BBC’s political editor discusses the current Brexit situation on the latest Brexitcast podcast.

Mark D'Arcy
Parliamentary Correspondent

There’s never quite the same edge when it’s the battle of the stand-ins at PMQs… but it is pretty clear from Emily Thornberry’s (extended) line of questioning that Labour's plan to hammer away at the government’s Chequers compromise, to stoke Brexiteer nervousness and punch the bruises in the Conservative ranks.

She may have run a little aground in the sands of euro-detail, but the politics was surely correct, and as usual the pre-packed jokes were suitably biting.

After this, any lingering notion that the government could rely on being bailed out by Labour votes if faced with a backbench rebellion against Chequers can be laid to rest.

David Lidington remained, as ever, a calm professional presence at the dispatch box, and his riposte, that Labour’s Brexit policy was the best kept secret in Westminster, hit home.

These exchanges got unusually detailed, but it was never really about the detail. No-one who’s been out and about in Westminster in the last couple of days can be in any doubt about the jittery combination of brave faces and angry nervousness in the hearts of Tory MPs.

This was about keeping those hearts a-flutter, and not in a good way.

Most backbenchers stayed out of the Brexiting but the Conservative Julia Lopez put down a marker about keeping faith with the referendum, and her words gave a clue about how high feelings are running.

Elsewhere, there were a couple of Conservative questions about crime – suggesting the issue is climbing up the league-table of concerns. Keep an eye on that; it could goad the new Home Secretary (and possible future PM) Sajid Javid into action.

House of Commons
Parliament

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Shadow defence secretary Nia Griffiths pays tribute to all of those who have served and are serving in the country.

"The UK has always played its full part in contributing to these Nato missions," she says.

She asks for a planned timetable for the troops remaining in Afghanistan; and she asks if the training given to Afghan security services will be in specialised activities or more general.

She asks what conversations Mr Williamson has had with upping other countries' support for the mission.

Mr Williamson says the UK wants to be in the country to get "the right outcomes" in terms of "a peace process". The UK continues to work closely "with all allies" within the Nato coalition, he adds.