Select Committee
Parliament

Labour's Stephen Kinnock says it could be argued that the "narrow" victory for Leave in the 2016 referendum is a "mandate to move house but to stay in the same neighbourhood".

Mr Kinnock is a supporter of the so-called Norway model for Brexit - under which the UK would remain in the EU's single market.

Suella Braverman says talking about the narrowness of the vote is a "tactic to render the result meaningless", adding: "I don't agree with that position, and we don't run elections in that way".

She adds that Brexit was "endorsed" during the 2017 General Election, because "80% of voters" endorsed parties that supported Brexit.

She says "we don't have to deliver a 'Remainers' Brexit' because of the 52:48 result".

Select Committee
Parliament

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SNP MP Dr Phillipa Whitford says one thing she's heard repeatedly from EU politicians is "what does the UK want?" She asks if the UK should have had that debate before triggering Article 50.

Suella Braverman says she thinks "it was pretty clear what the UK wanted from Brexit in 2016"...pretty clear and not very complicated". She adds: "I don't think it was beyond our grasp".

Earlier in the committee, she said that the referendum vote was a mandate for controlling immigration and leaving the single market and the customs union.

Select Committee
Parliament

Former Brexit Minister Suella Braverman tells the committee that she is worried that under the Brexit withdrawal deal, the UK will have "medium to nonexistent" influence over policy during the transition period and after, depending on what EU regulation and law the UK agrees to follow post-Brexit.

She says she realised when she was at the Brexit department that this would "leave the UK in a very exposed position".

She says that when she decided to resign, she had many concerns but "one of those areas of concern was new EU laws coming down to the UK during the transition period".

Select Committee
Parliament

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The committee is now hearing from Suella Braverman, who served as a Brexit minister from January last year until her resignation in November.

Committee chair Sir Bill Cash quotes from her resignation letter, where she called the backstop a "betrayal" and said that the Brexit negotiations "do not respect the will of the people".

"I felt very strongly about the situation and I chose those words deliberately" she says.

She adds that her time at the Brexit department was marked by a "growing erosion in my faith at the policy being honestly delivered" and the backstop plan was the final straw.

She says that the plan - which intends to maintain an open border on the island of Ireland - doesn't honour the terms of Brexit and "that ultimately, is a betrayal".

She says that she appreciates the need for compromise but there's a time when compromise "becomes total surrender".

House of Lords
Parliament

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Conservative Lord Robathan asks what payments the government will make to the EU in the event of a no-deal Brexit.

Treasury Minister Lord Bates says the government has "agreed a fair financial settlement with the EU" but the government has always accepted that the UK and EU have obligations to each other "which need to be resolved".

Lord Robathan says that the UK "should not pay bills when we have not received anything in exchange".

Lord Bates says that the withdrawal agreement is not related to the "future economic partnership". Not paying it would have an impact on the UK's ability to "get a good [trade] deal," he adds.

Select Committee
Parliament

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Labour's Stephen Kinnock says that if a Brexit deal passes, a bill to implement the agreement would also need to be passed by both houses of parliament.

He asks if it is "possible or credible to do that" without an extension of Article 50.

Dominic Raab says it'd be "very challenging" but could be "physically possible" if sitting hours are extended.

He says that otherwise there could be a "modest" extension "of a week or so".

House of Commons
Parliament

That's it from our coverage of the Commons today, as the adjournment debate on prostate cancer has ended.

We'll be back at 9.30am tomorrow with international trade and women and equalities questions, before Commons Leader Andrea Leadsom outlines parliamentary business for next week.

This will be followed by two select committee statements: one from the science and technology committee on the impact of social media and screen-use on young people's health, and the next from the education committee on tackling disadvantage in early-years education.

There will then be two backbench business debates on anti-social behaviour and beer taxation in pubs.

SNP MP Angela Crawley will lead the adjournment debate on the closure of Santander banks.

House of Commons
Parliament

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Health Minister Steve Brine says survival rates in the UK from cancer are at "their best ever - improving every year since 2010".

Mr Brine says amongst men, prostate cancer is the most common cancer in the UK, but that there is an 85% survival rate.

The government is committed to detecting all cancers earlier, he says, adding: "we must improve outcomes for all cancers and we will".

Mr Brine says he is the first man to hold the public health minister role for a long time and that he is "determined to raise the bar on men's health generally and male cancers".

He adds the government has invested £75m into prostate cancer research.

House of Lords
Parliament

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Labour's Lord Berkeley asks what progress has been made in improving the resilience of the railway line through Dawlish in Devon after part of the track was destroyed in 2014.

Transport Minister Baroness Sugg says that Network Rail has worked to make sure that the railway is "more resilient". She adds that "essential repairs" have now been completed on the line.

Lord Berkeley says this year the service has been disrupted ten separate times.

Baroness Sugg says that "ongoing investment" in rail infrastructure in south-west England is important, and the government is looking at a more permanent solution to problems on the line.

House of Lords
Parliament

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Labour's Lord Kennedy of Southwark asks what steps the government is taking to deal with online abuse by people using anonymous social media accounts.

Culture Minister Lord Ashton says that online anonymity is important for a "free and open internet" but the government has made it clear that more powers are needed to "tackle online abuse".

The government will publish a paper on the matter this coming winter, he adds.

Lord Kennedy says there is concern from "law-abiding citizens" of abuse, and the platforms hosting this content have "done nowhere near enough" to tackle it.

Lord Ashton says in the majority of cases, anonymous accounts are still traceable. He adds that he recognises "the public disquiet about this".

Select Committee
Parliament

Labour MP Geraint Davies asks Dominic Raab how the UK can leave the EU's customs union but also prevent British firms exporting non-EU approved goods into the Republic of Ireland.

"You have to have a hard border to stop us exporting all sorts of stuff", says Geraint Davies.

Dominic Raab says his Labour counterpart has come up with an "analogue answer in the digital age", and trade issues at the border can be solved with "intelligence-led checks".

"There's quite a lot of scope for tagging of goods" he adds, but there's "no question that you need checks, you just don't need them at the border".

There are, he says, "plenty of global examples of reasonably porous borders...they don't have the kind of problems you describe".

House of Lords
Parliament

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Labour's Lord West, a former First Sea Lord, asks how much the Ministry of Defence charged the Home Office for use of a Royal Navy patrol ship to deter migrant crossings in the English Channel.

Home Office Minister Baroness Williams of Trafford says the deployment of the vessel is a "temporary measure" until Border Force vessels return from being posted overseas.

She adds that the cost has been £700,000 so far.

Lord West says that so far, the Channel ship has been a "shambles". He adds that as the UK heads towards Brexit, the need to patrol territorial waters has never been greater.

Select Committee
Parliament

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Former Brexit secretary Dominic Raab tells the committee that he "favours a deal" and thinks that the government should "press to the eleventh hour and beyond" to get one.

Labour Brexiteer Kate Hoey asks how recently the EU realised that no deal was "something we could do".

Dominic Raab says: "we always argued that no deal was better than a bad deal...I made that very clear in Brussels".

House of Commons
Parliament

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Conservative MP Simon Hoare is now introducing his adjournment debate on prostate cancer - which he says is timely, as World Cancer Day was marked on Monday.

He says prostate cancer is the most common male cancer in the UK, with 47,000 diagnosed each year. One in eight men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer, he says.

Statistics show that men appear to have a greater aversion to going to the doctor about their health, Mr Hoare says, adding: "we worry it is going to be embarrassing and undignifed".

"We need to up the game in terms of communication and education of male cancers," he adds.

House of Lords
Parliament

The Lords will shortly be starting their day at 3pm.

They've got oral questions on the Royal Navy, online abuse, the Dawlish railway line and Brexit.

The chamber has a final question on the five foreign nationals who were due to be deported to Jamaica.

Peers will then hear the third reading of the Financial Services (Implementation of Legislation) Bill, external, followed by a number of orders and regulations.

Mark D'Arcy
Parliamentary Correspondent

Perhaps it’s not quite – in the venomous phrase of the Tory great, Iain Macleod – “Hamlet without the First Gravedigger” but PMQs with David Lidington and Emily Thornberry was certainly a less leaden affair than the usual May-Corbyn double act.

David Lidington dealt sympathetically with constituency concerns and ducked and dived with some agility when the questioning turned to Brexit. Most of his answers were constrained by the fact that the PM has not yet produced a new version of her deal, but his body language, especially around the exchanges about a customs union, and a possible postponement of Brexit day, will doubtless receive intense scrutiny.

Across her series of questions, Emily Thornberry blended a nice line of mockery with an actual argument for pivoting to a new policy. To be sure, the atmosphere was far less charged and the House far less shouty then a May-Corbyn PMQs would have been, so it was far easier for the main protagonists to have a semi-civilised dialogue, but there was something more about their exchanges.

It was spotted by that gnarled old veteran of a thousand political battles, Ken Clark, who observed that the two of them would qucikly find a solution which could pass the Commons, if only they were left to themselves.

In fact, the Brexit questions which dotted this edition of PMQs provided a rousing overture to next week’s return to full-on Brexitry. David Lidington confirmed that the prime minister would make a statement on Wednesday, but suggested that a second 'meaningful vote' debate was unlikely to follow on the Thursday – and in that event there would be a debate which gave MPs the chance to vote on alternative ideas.

Emily Thornberry’s riposte suggested that Labour might make another attempt to allow the Commons to seize the wheel, perhaps with a new version of the Cooper-Boles amendment which was defeated last week. This would give priority to a backbench bill to instruct the PM to seek a postponement of Brexit, to allow some new approach.

Meanwhile there were some ominous rumbles from the Tory Brexiteer ranks, with Mark Francois unhappy at recent comments by Theresa May on the Northern Ireland backstop plan – and insisting that they wanted it replaced. It was a blunt warning that a crucial block of MPs might once again vote down her Brexit plan.

And I doubt we have heard the last of the issue raised by Labour’s Stephen Kinnock, who accused the Conservative party of accepting Russian money. I suspect he will find ways to bring that issue back to the floor of the Commons.

House of Commons
Parliament

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Summing up the debate, Work and Pensions Minister Sarah Newton says she has heard the calls for the compensation payment increases to go up in line with inflation.

However, she notes that if automatic uprating took place, "these importantly yearly debates on the matter would not occur".

This government wants to do the right thing, which is why it is upgrading its policy on this issue, Ms Newton says, "but MPs must remember the situation is dynamic".

She adds that ministers are continuously looking at asbestos and what can be done to combat it, in association with the NHS.

The funding must be given to those who will most benefit from it, she says.

The social security motions pass without division.

Select Committee
Parliament

Image source, AFP/Getty Images

At 2:30pm, the European Scrutiny Committee will hear evidence from two former ministers in the Department for Exiting the EU.

First up will be Dominic Raab, who succeeded David Davis as Brexit Secretary in July last year before resigning in November in protest at the EU exit deal.

At 3:30pm, the committee will hear from Suella Braverman, junior Brexit minister from January to November last year, when she also resigned in opposition to the Brexit agreement.

House of Commons
Parliament

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Labour MP Dennis Skinner, a former coal miner, says people who are suffering from these illnesses have had their lives changed forever and they "must not be forgotten".

There are thousands affected in mining areas, he says, especially in Wales.

"It is like a death sentence the moment it gets you", he adds.

House of Commons
Parliament

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Conservative MP Sir Mike Penning says teachers are now not allowed to put a drawing pin in the wall for fear of disturbing the asbestos.

He welcomes the government's motions to increase the level of compensation, but adds that the issue needs to be continually closely monitored.