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Conservative MP Paul Scully says there are many concerns that the Brexit deal risks the UK being trapped in an extended, if not permanent, backstop arrangement.

He asks Theresa May to explain why she believes the EU would not want this situation to exist, and instead would support a new free trade agreement.

Mrs May says the EU is opposed to the UK remaining in the backstop because it is an attractive position for the UK.

There would be no financial obligation to the EU whilst in the backstop, plus the UK would not be accepting free movement and under only very light touch level playing field agreements.

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SNP MP Joanna Cherry says "the Scottish case has shown Article 50 can indeed be revoked."

She says that given the government has now lost on this issue, "can the prime minister tell us why she has put so much public money and energy into depriving this Parliament of the real options open to it when the deal is voted down next week?"

Theresa May says: "We will not revoke Article 50 and we will be leaving the EU."

The advice is in the form of a letter to the prime minister, external from Attorney General Geoffrey Cox, dated 13 November – when Labour passed its original motion asking for it to be published.

In the letter, Geoffrey Cox said the proposed 'backstop' arrangement with the EU to prevent a hard Irish border could "endure indefinitely".

The UK, he said, would not be able to "lawfully exit" the arrangement without a subsequent political agreement and this could lead to "stalemate".

Under the arrangement, he added, goods passing from Great Britain to Northern Ireland would be “subject to the declaration process”.

It also says the EU's Court of Justice will have jurisdiction when it comes to deciding whether Northern Ireland has complied with EU customs laws.

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Conservative MP Trudy Harrison says her constituency has been affected by 42 days rail strike action, despite an assurance from the transport secretary that that guards on the Cumbrian rail service will remain.

She asks for the PM to condemn the strikes, which are impacting her constituencies and businesses.

Theresa May says there is no reason to continue "this meaningless action" and urges for the strikes to end.

"The message is very clear: stop the strikes and put passengers first."

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Conservative MP Sir Bill Cash says the motion on the Attorney General's legal advice relates to the whole of the Withdrawal Agreement not just the question of the Northern Ireland protocol.

The Conservative MP states that under the ministerial code, law officers must be consulted in "good time" before the government is committed to "critical decisions".

He asks why there has been no legal opinion published on control over laws, European Court Justice jurisdiction and the incompatibility 1972 European Communities Act

The prime minister suggests he looks at remarks made in the chamber yesterday.

She adds it is clear the Withdrawal Act repealed the 1972 European Communities Act and brought EU law into UK law.

Changes necessary to implementation can be made within the Withdrawal Agreement Bill she adds.

Mark D'Arcy
Parliamentary Correspondent

The SNP’s Ian Blackford piles in with a reference to the Attorney General’s Brexit advice - and immediately gets into a row with an accusation that the prime minister has misled Parliament “perhaps inadvertently”.

This is too obvious an error to be er, “inadvertent”.

He knew it would cause a row and he was happy for the row to occur, and generate headlines.

And the Speaker pulled him up on it.

The SNP rather enjoys this kind of thing…cocking a snook at what it regards as the pomposities of Westminster’s mannered debating style.

Former Leader Alex Salmond was a master of this manoeuvre.

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Labour MP Sharon Hodgson says funding local services such as fire and rescue and police services through the council tax precept "doesn't work".

She calls for the prime minister "to look again at a funding formula" as the government's actions "are driving areas perilously close to providing unsafe fire and police services".

Theresa May says the authorities' core spending power has increased this year.

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Tory MP Charles Walker thanks Theresa May for her campaigning on mental health.

He asks the prime minister to congratulate Sir Simon Wessely on his report looking at the Mental Health Act, external which will be released shortly.

"Even though this House is so divided on many issues, we should be united on this latest report," he adds.

Theresa May thanks SIr Simon for his hard work, and says she agrees that "our work on mental health should be supported across the House."

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Labour MP Alison McGovern says New Ferry in her constituency was devastated by an explosion in 2017, for which the prime minister promised her there would be government support to help the recovery.

However, a letter from the housing secretary suggests that there were will not be such funding.

Was she wrong to take the prime minister at her word? she asks, or were her constituents right to say that you can never trust the Tories.

Theresa May says the explosion was devastating and clearly impacted businesses. She will look at the letter, but her understanding was that the letter encouraged the local council to apply for various funding streams.

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Labour MP Kevin Brennan says point six of the Attorney General's legal advice breaches the prime minister's red lines on the single market and the customs union.

This makes the deal "even less likely pass this House", says Mr Brennan.

He adds that constitutionally this should mean a general election.

The MP then calls for a public vote on the deal.

The prime minister replies that the her arrangement means the UK will not be in single market or customs union.

She calls the deal an "ambitious trade agreement", "unlike any other given to an advance economy".

Ms May says it is "good for jobs and the country".

Away from the action between Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn in the chamber, the government has just published its Brexit legal advice in full.

It comes after MPs yesterday found ministers in contempt of Parliament for not having previously published the full advice, after they asked them to do so last month.

You can read the six-page letter from Attorney General Geoffrey Cox here, external.

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Parliament

SNP MP Stewart Hosie says: "under every single Brexit model GDP will fall."

He says the prime minister "is pretending that ending free movement is a good thing, when it is a bad thing".

Mr Hosie asks why Theresa May "is so willing to take from our children and grandchildren the ability to travel freely through Europe", and questions why "she is doing it in a way that is economically illiterate".

Theresa May says: "The best deal for the UK is the deal that is on the table."

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The SNP's Westminster leader Ian Blackford says "we were promised strong and stable, but what we have is a government in crisis that has suffered three consecutive defeats in just two hours" and is in contempt of Parliament.

"Is it time that the prime minister took responsibility for concealing the facts?" he asks.

The prime minister says the government have not concealed the facts. The answers given by the Attorney General on Monday very clearly set out the legal position of the Brexit deal.

Mr Blackford calls her response disappointing.

"We have seen the facts that the government tried to hide...this government is giving Northern Ireland permanent membership of the customs union" despite statements otherwise.

This prime minister is misleading the House, he says, for which he is told off by the Speaker.

Mr Blackford says he used the the word inadvertently, "the prime minister has been misleading the House perhaps inadvertently" - and the Speaker tells him to rephrase again.

He says the prime minister must explain why she continues to deny Scotland the "rights and opportunities offered to other parts of the United Kingdom".

Theresa May says she has not misled MPs, acknowledging that "there is no unilateral right to pull out of the backstop". But it is not the intention that it should be ever used at all it the first place, she says.

We are leaving the EU as the whole United Kingdom, she says, and for the interests of Scotland remaining in the UK internal market is the most important thing.

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Conservative MP Helen Whately says a third of women are missing out on cervical screenings, and asks what the government are doing to ensure more women are going for these tests and that "cancer is being detected before it is too late".

Theresa May says the government has launched an initiative aiming to ensure 3/4 of cancers detected "at an early stage" by 2028.

"Smear tests are not nice, but they are important," she says. "If you want to see cancer detected early, have your smear test, it is worth a few minutes of discomfort to save your life."

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In his final question, Jeremy Corbyn says the "poorest lose out" when ministers talk about making "difficult decisions" - with 4.3m disabled people now in poverty.

There's considerable jeering from the Conservative benches when he accuses the government of having "labelled disabled people scroungers".

He says talk in the UN rapporteur's report about a "mean-spirited and callous approach" sums up the government's approach to welfare.

Theresa May replies that the poorest lose out "when a Labour government comes in".

The government has introduced the new higher minimum wage, taken many people out of paying income tax altogether and created over three million jobs, she says.

"Labour would destroy all that," she says.