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Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned in Salisbury in March.

Police are linking the attack on the Skripals to a separate Novichok poisoning on 30 June, when Dawn Sturgess and Charlie Rowley became unwell at a house in Amesbury, about eight miles away.

Ms Sturgess died in hospital on 8 July.

Scotland Yard and the UK's Crown Prosecution Service have said there is enough evidence to charge the men who were identified.

• The two men are understood to have travelled to London from Moscow on 2 March on Russian passports.

• They travelled to London's Victoria station before heading to Waterloo for about 18:00 GMT. They then made their way to the City Stay Hotel in Bow, east London, for the first of their two-night stay.
• Traces of Novichok, below the levels that would cause health concerns, were later found in their room.
• On the afternoon of Saturday 3 March, the Russian suspects arrived in Salisbury from Waterloo on what police believe was a reconnaissance mission. The same day the Russian suspects returned from Salisbury to London by train.
• On the morning of Sunday 4 March the Russian suspects again took the London Underground from Bow to Waterloo, before continuing their journey by train to Salisbury.
• The suspects arrived at Salisbury station, a mile from Mr Skripal's home, at midday.
• At 13:50 GMT the two Russian suspects returned to London by train, arriving in the capital at approximately 16:45 GMT.
• At 16:15 GMT police found the Skripals on a bench in an "extremely serious condition".
• The suspects boarded the London Underground to London Heathrow Airport, and board a flight to Moscow at 22:30 GMT.

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Shadow Home Office minister Nick Thomas-Symonds says the Salisbury attack was "not a rogue operation" and praises the "fortitude" of the emergency services and staff in the town.

Mr Thomas-Symonds says the death of Dawn Sturgess was "needless" and shows the "abomination" of using nerve agents in this way.

In referencing the Interpol Red Notice and the European Arrest Warrant issued for the two suspects by the prime minister, the shadow minister says he hopes such mechanisms will "still be valid" after 29 March 2019.

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Home Office Minister Ben Wallace says: "Mr Putin should be no illusion that the international community's response to the action of the GRU [Russian military intelligence service] has not waned."

He says the government "very quickly" made wide use of unexplained wealth orders, which became law this year, and they intend to use more as time goes on.

It is about stopping the system being littered and corrupted by "dirty money", as well as stopping "those people who allow these crooks to enjoy their money in London", he adds.

He says requests for a response to the attack from Russia have been met with "obfuscation and lies", which do not help their case "in any way whatsoever".

"The deluge of disinformation about Salisbury from Russia merely reinforces their guilt."

The government department responsible for food exports is not prepared for no-deal Brexit, auditors say.

MPs are currently debating the Salisbury Incident in the Commons.

This morning, Russian President Vladamir Putin said the two suspects in the poisoning of ex-Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter had been identified, and referred to them as "civilians, not criminals".

The UK government last Wednesday named the two suspects as Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, and said they were from Russia's military intelligence service, the GRU.

Vladamir Putin said he hoped the pair would appear soon and tell their story.

He said: "There is nothing special there, nothing criminal, I assure you. We'll see in the near future."

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The Commons now move to a general debate on the Salisbury incident.

Deputy Speaker Eleanor Laing begins by stressing to MPs the need to "exercise discretion and avoid saying anything that may prejudice a future trial". Home Office minister Ben Wallace echoes this point in his opening remarks.

"When a hostile state is determined to try and use its full resources to penetrate another state, the challenge is much greater," he says. "We are working on a number of measures to push back Russia's activities."

Independent MP John Woodcock asks why the government has reached the conclusion that "other deeply suspicious deaths of Russian dissidents and others on British soil should not be re-investigated".

The minister responds that the government has "re-examined these cases and... in those cases, the investigations did not throw up anything that would lead us to be suspicious.

"That does not distract from the fact that Russia uses lethal force when it chooses to and that that must be challenged when we find it."

The minister is keen to stress that "this is not an ad hoc amateur event", but an action by a hostile state.

There are a number of interventions where MPs question whether Jeremy Corbyn has taken up the offer to be briefed by the head of MI5 on the issue, with some suggesting he doubts Russia's responsibility.

The minister says it would not be appropriate for him to share whether or not meetings have taken place, but shadow home secretary Diane Abbott intervenes to say she has been briefed - and Mr Wallace says that clarifies the Labour position.

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Conservative MP Rebecca Pow introduces the day's Ten Minute Rule Bill, asking for a public consultation to be held on innovative technologies and energy consumption in households and commercial properties, and a report to be drawn up.

She also calls for steps to be taken to encourage the development of innovative technologies to reduce energy consumption.

Ms Pow says the aim is to harness new and innovative carbon saving technologies to achieve lower energy consumption in our homes through cutting energy wasted, which will lower fuel bills and greenhouse gas emissions.

She said these issues affect everyone, homeowners, renters and businesses and hopes the government will get behind this bill.

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Chair of the Public Accounts Committee Meg Hillier says the former permanent secretary at the Home Office "has acknowledged that the funding formula for policing is ineffective".

She says it looks like this will not be addressed until the spending review, which means it will not be in effect until 2020/21.

She asks if the minister "can give us anymore comfort on that" and when it will be revisited.

Mr Hurd says "my priority... is to shape the size of the cake, and the total cake, and then, we need to deliver a compelling analysis and plan for how that cake gets divided up in a way that reflects in a fairer way the demands on the current police system."

"I think the appropriate point... is in the context of the CSR [spending review]."

Mark D'Arcy
Parliamentary Correspondent

Well, that was nasty; shouty, a bit more personal and very, very loud.

This finger jabbing, heckle-heavy PMQs demonstrated the rising political temperature in Parliament.

Pre-prepared attack lines were deployed and the respective parties howled their delight.

But no-one was trounced, or even bruised in the encounters between the main players. It was telling that, either from herd instinct or conscious organisation, there was quite an effort to provide the PM with helpful questions which allowed her to pivot to good news stories.

One way or another loyalist Tories are coming to their leader’s assistance.

Maybe the hyper-partisan atmosphere deterred any MPs from of the various rebel factions on the Tory and Labour benches from breaking ranks.

The most telling moment came when former Army officer Johnny Mercer raised the continuing historic investigations into military veterans over allegations dating from the Iraq war or even the Northern Ireland Troubles.

Mr Mercer has irritated Downing Street with his continuing parliamentary campaign on this issue, and on veterans’ mental health, which stretches back to his maiden speech in 2015 – and here he was again with a critical question to the PM.

Her answer using terms like “flawed” and “disproportionate” seemed to hint at a softening of the government’s position, and Mr Mercer’s frown in response suggests he will be following up to pin down exactly what she might mean.

According to the National Audit Office, the UK's public spending watchdog, the Home Office does not know whether the police system in England and Wales is "financially sustainable".

The report found:

• The approach to police funding "ineffective" and "detached".
• The Home Office have not forecast the effect of losing 44,000 police officers and staff since 2010.
• There has been a cut of 22,424 police officers since September 2009.
• It took 18 days to charge an offence for the year ending March 2018 - four days longer than for the year ending March 2016.
• The arrest rate fell to 14 arrests per 1,000 population in 2016-17, down from 17 per 1,000 population in 2014-15.
• There have been fewer breathalyser tests, motoring fixed penalty notices and convictions for drugs trafficking and possession since 2010.
• 33% of victims were not happy with police response in the year ending March 2018, up from 29% in the year ending March 2016.

You can read the NAO's report on the financial sustainability of police forces in England and Wales here., external

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Lib Dem home affairs spokesperson, Ed Davey, says the police are now taking up the slack of other public services and struggling to deliver.

He asks if the home secretary will, ahead of the Budget, ask for more cash for the police and ensure that more money goes to the NHS for collaborative work, including the extremely important work regarding mental health cases.

Home Office Minister Nick Hurd responds that a clear issue brought up in the NAO's report was the time police officers are spending "doing other people's jobs" and away from "core police work".

He says a collaboration between the NHS and police forces is being worked on.

He says this would ensure the amount of police time spent working on mental health cases is reduced, yet the important work completed on mental health cases is not compromised.

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Shadow home secretary Diane Abbott says the House appreciates the minister has met police but yesterday's report is a "damning indictment of successive Conservative home secretaries and their handling of the police service."

She says that total funding has fallen by 19%, whilst police have faced "an upsurge in low volume and high harm crime", which the public most fear.

She says police are "struggling, that's their words, to deliver an effective service".

She says the police need assurances the government will not wait until the service is "struggling like the prisons service".

Nick Hurd accepts that "the numbers don't lie" when it comes to the reduction in police numbers, but he says the government has had to deal with "the stark economic facts the coalition government faced in 2010... we needed to get finances back intact."

He says the government is concerned in the clear increase in serious violent crime and says: "We will continue to support the police... police funding as a priority.

"This government attaches the highest priority to public safety."

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Shadow home secretary Diane Abbott asks today's only urgent question on the National Audit Office's report on the financial sustainability of police forces in England and Wales.

Home Office Minister Nick Hurd says the Home Office understands and agrees that the police are under pressure, and they are determined to support them.

Nick Hurd says he has commissioned analysis to improve police resilience and has provided a funding settlement which will increase police funding by £460m in the current financial year, which includes £50m extra for counter terrorism, and £280m for force funding.

He says the government is not stopping there and it is working very closely with police ahead of the spending review.

The minister says the report is valuable in highlighting the pressures on police, but it does not give adequate weight to other positive aspects of police forces, including the strength of the local accountability structure through PCCs.

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Conservative MP Johnny Mercer says veterans in Northern Ireland are being "dragged through the courts" in order to appease political differences, while the vast majority of the country find this "abhorrent".

He asks her what she is doing personally about the situation.

The PM says we owe a "vast debt of gratitude" to the police officers who upheld the rule of law, which has always set them apart from the terrorists.

She goes on to say the current system in Northern Ireland is "flawed" and there is a "disproportionate focus" on armed forces and the police.

Mr Mercer looks puzzled at Mrs May's response.

Some army veterans who served in Northern Ireland claim they are being treated unfairly by the government over incidents from the past.

Image source, HoC

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Plaid Cymru's Westminster leader Liz Savile Roberts says on Monday the aluminium and steel industry told leaders of the opposition, "with the exception of the leader of the Labour party, who refused to attend", that thousands of jobs were being put at risk by the British government's Brexit policy and "threadbare industrial strategy".

She asks if the PM is prepared to "dole out P45s to manufacturing workers, simply in order to appease the Brexit extremists in her own party?"

Theresa May says the "portrayal of the situation couldn't be further from the case".

She adds that the government plans carry out the wishes of the British people, but does so in a way that protects jobs and livelihoods.

She says the government has helped the steel industry "in a number of ways" and the industrial strategy creates "jobs for the future".

The report by pro-Brexit MPs on developing existing procedures, but its solutions still present problems.

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SNP's Carol Monaghan asks if the prime minister will take responsibility to ensure the Department of Work and Pensions has special measures in place to deal with Windrush applicants, and confirm that victims of this scandal will get the support they need.

The PM reminds the MP that a special task force has been set up by the Department of Work and Pensions to deal with Windrush cases and to provide help and support to individuals.

She says what is important is that individuals are able to interact with one government body who can take on the issues for them, and that this body will ensure that the best requirements are made.

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Labour MP Wayne David asks whether the prime minister would be happy with the UK leaving the EU and not being able to access the European Arrest Warrant.

Theresa May says as home secretary she led a debate which ensured that the UK "exercised, under the powers of protocol 36, the UK went back into the European Arrest Warrant".

She adds that it is "one of those instruments identified as something that the government wishes to discuss with the EU about being able to continue to use it."