Rolling coverage of the day’s political developments as they happen, including Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn at PMQs
Snap PMQs verdict
PMQs verdict
PMQs - Verdict from the Twitter commentariat
Afternoon summary
4.06pm GMT
This U-turn comes just 24 hours after David Davis seemed to rule out a white paper, and failed to answer repeated questions from MPs on all sides of the House. The prime minister now needs to confirm that this white paper will be published in time to inform the Article 50 process, and that it will clear up the inconsistencies, gaps and risks outlined in her speech.
.@theSNP is calling for UK govt to publish Brexit White Paper before committee stage of Art50 legislation #Brexit https://t.co/b7MBkITRN4
We are committed to taking forward the plans that have been already set out for increased support for helping people with dementia and tackling this vital issue.
One of the things I would like to see, and I know you are looking at it, is building on the experience of problem-solving courts. Those charged with sentencing offenders have the option, of course, of custody, but can also say to the offender concerned that if they commit to undertake either an appropriate course of mental health care, or they commit to dealing with their drug or alcohol addiction, or if they commit to dealing with their behaviour in a meaningful way, then they have the option of dealing with their sentence out of court.
From April, prison governors will be given new freedoms to drive forward the reforms I’ve been talking about. Cut free from Whitehall micro-management, they will have control over budgets, over education, over staffing structures, and they will be able to set their own prison regime.
At the moment we have a whole plethora of prison rules, including how big prisoners’ bath mats can be - and surely that is not the way to treat people who want to be leaders of some of our great institutions?
3.48pm GMT
One unlikely group that has welcomed the supreme court’s exclusion of the devolved assemblies from the article 50/Brexit triggering vote are the hardline Irish republican dissidents opposed to peace and power sharing in Northern Ireland.
Republican Sinn Fein - the political allies of the Continuity IRA - said today that the supreme court judges’ decision to give no room for the regional parliaments in Belfast, Edinburgh and Cardiff to have a say was proof that real state power over Northern Ireland remained in London’s hands.
Firstly, it underlines the powerlessness of the various devolved assemblies. What this ruling reinforces is that all powers of national sovereignty are vested in the British imperial parliament at Westminster while the six-county state is regarded as merely another region of the so-called United Kingdom.
Secondly, the British supreme court ruling exposes the British government’s supposed concern for that the “will of the majority within Northern Ireland” be upheld as subservient to the interests of the imperial parliament at Westminster.
3.12pm GMT
In the Scottish Parliament Willie Rennie, the Lib Dem MSP, asks if SNP MPs would support a Lib Dem attempt to try to amend the article 50 bill to require a referendum on the final Brexit deal.
Russell says the Lib Dems have refused to say that, if such a second referendum were to take place, Scotland would stay in the EU if the rest of the UK voted to leave. He says the Lib Dem proposal has no chance of getting through the Commons. He is happy to talk to the Lib Dems, he says, but he says it is more important for the SNP to go with the flow, by which he means to focus on amendments they might win.
2.54pm GMT
Russell is still speaking.
He says this is also about what kind of country we want.
2.51pm GMT
Michael Russell is making his statement now.
He says the Scottish government welcomes the supreme court judgment.
Supreme Court view on rights of Holyrood are a deep disappointment. There was an opportunity here to recognise new reality of a changed UK.
/ Have to say it plainly, this is a depressing moment for those of us who've consistently backed home rule for Scotland within a reformed UK
2.22pm GMT
Michael Russell, the Scottish Brexit minister, will be making a statement about the supreme court judgment shortly.
You can watch it here.
1.57pm GMT
This is what political journalists and commentators are saying about PMQs.
The consensus is that Theresa May won.
Today's #PMQs showed that Labour is left with very little opportunity to attack Theresa May on Brexit https://t.co/Jxf6XO08LH
COMMENT CONT. TM's most Prime Ministerial #PMQs yet
My verdict on #PMQs - why didn't Jeremy Corbyn make the most of Theresa May's #Brexit U-turn?https://t.co/LfQ3Y6pPlS pic.twitter.com/4m9tfouQTq
It's Burns Night, but everything Jeremy Corbyn touched at PMQs turned to haggis@mudiek's #PMQs sketch.https://t.co/MWGI2poGpN pic.twitter.com/3YdY8vvyfI
I actually think that was the worst PMQs yet for Corbyn.
It sounds as if Corbyn wrote bits of question on a piece of paper, cut it up and then read out the fragments in random order. #pmqs
Corbyn somehow managed to turn an embarrassing Govt climbdown into a 6-0 whacking from Theresa May. Quite some feat even for him #PMQs
Labour leader snatches defeat from jaws of victory - as PM concedes White Paper on Brexit - what Opposition wanted #PMQs @itvnews
Jeremy Corbyn produces a ‘bargain basement’ performance at PMQs in one of his worst ever appearances at the despat… https://t.co/LdQtxu8otM
1.47pm GMT
The Times’ Sam Coates points out that, applying Daily Mail logic, Theresa May is now plotting to thwart Brexit.
It emerges at PMQs that Theresa has joined the White Paper Plot pic.twitter.com/QloGj3JxkI
1.45pm GMT
During PMQs Jeremy Corbyn mistakenly said that the police office who was shot in Northern Ireland at the weekend had died. Afterwards his spokesman said that Corbyn had meant to say that the police officer had “nearly died” and that Corbyn had not intended to cause offence.
The Police Federation for Northern Ireland is angered by what he said.
We have gd relationship with @UKLabour MPs, @Vernon_Coaker @ConorMcGinn & Tom Blenkinsop. They will be outraged by this gaffe by Mr Corbin.
1.25pm GMT
My colleague Anushka Asthana is speaking about PMQs now on the Guardian’s Facebook Live page.
1.15pm GMT
PMQs - Verdict: PMQs is not contested on a level playing field. The prime minister has various advantages, one of which is that she, or he, can use the platform to make an announcement that will flummox the leader of the opposition. That’s what Theresa May did today, and it worked.
Her decision to announce a white paper on Brexit did not come as a huge surprise, because anyone who listened to David Davis’s Commons statement yesterday will have concluded that the government would end up being forced into publishing one anyway. But it was odd to see May offer up this up so quickly. Governments often need to be able to dangle concessions to the opposition and to rebel MPs as legislation is going through parliament, and May has just given away something that might have averted defeat at report stage on the article 50 bill. And all that will happen now is that Keir Starmer, Alex Salmond and Anna Soubry will start dreaming up the next demand around which remain-minded MPs can coalesce.
Macpherson points out flaw in May/Hammond cunning threat to turn UK into low-tax Singapore https://t.co/O2QsQwwm45 pic.twitter.com/UcIblfSveA
12.51pm GMT
As usual, I missed the questions from Angus Robertson, the SNP’s leader at Westminster because I was writing up the snap verdict. But here they are.
Robertson asked about Theresa May’s visit to America.
In the spirit of progress for parliament, in advance of meeting President Trump, will the prime minister tell parliament what she wants to achieve in a UK-US trade deal?
What we want to achieve ... it’s very simple, we want to achieve an arrangement that ensures the interests of the UK are there, are put first and that we see trade arrangements with the US, as we will be looking for with other parts of our world, that will increase our trade, bring prosperity and delivers for every part of the UK.
Will the prime minister tell President Trump that she is not prepared to lower our food and safety standards or to open health systems for privatisation, or does she believe this is a price worth paying for a UK-US trade deal?
I can assure the RHG that in doing that we will put UK interests and UK values first.
12.44pm GMT
Ed Miliband, the former Labour leader, rises to a lot of cheering. “It brings back memories,” he says. He says May carries great responsibility in being the first foreign leader to meet President Trump. Will she urge him to stick to the Paris climate change agreement? And, if he does not believe in climate change, will she offer him some British scientists.
May says the government hopes all parties to the Paris climate change treaty will ensure it is put into practice.
12.42pm GMT
The Conservative Maggie Throup asks if May will order a review of social care in Derbyshire.
May says successful social care is not just about funding. It is also about what happens on the ground. This issue has been ducked by governments for too long. The government wants a sustainable solution.
12.41pm GMT
The DUP’s Nigel Dodds wishes a full recovery to the policeman shot in his constituency. Will May stop the one-sided persecution of police officers and soldiers in Northern Ireland who contributed so much to peace.
May says the majority of people killed were killed by terrorist activity. That is why the Northern Ireland secretary is looking at a legacy investigation.
12.40pm GMT
David Burrowes, a Conservative, asks if May backs a united Cyprus free from Turkish troops.
May says she is hopeful that that talks will reach a solution. Britain will play its part to make the talks a success, she says.
12.39pm GMT
May says the work and pensions secretary is looking at what can be done to get more disabled people into the workplace.
12.38pm GMT
May says she hopes the fate of EU nationals living in the UK, and of Britons living on the continent, will be decided “very early” in the Brexit negotiations. She wants their rights guaranteed, she says.
12.37pm GMT
The SNP’s Ian Blackford asks how many MPs have lodged petitions on behalf of women penalised by the rise in the state pension age.
May says the number of petitions received is a matter for parliament. But the government has taken steps to address this issue, she says.
12.36pm GMT
May says she was very pleased to take the cabinet to Daresbury on Monday.
12.35pm GMT
Labour’s Pat McFadden asks what would happen if parliament votes down the government’s Brexit deal. Would there be another one? Or would the UK leave the EU on WTO terms?
May say she expects to get a good deal. If parliament does not accept it, then “we do have to fall back on other arrangements”.
12.34pm GMT
The Conservative Sir Gerald Howarth asks if May will support an independent Ukraine.
May says she will.
12.33pm GMT
Labour’s Chris Bryant asks if the Duke of Westminster will continue to receive £407,000 when the UK leaves the common agricultural policy. And will other dukes still get similar amounts.
May says the government will decide what system what works best for the country.
12.32pm GMT
Oliver Dowden, a Conservative, asks if May will support making assaulting an NHS worker a specific offence.
May says the health secretary will look at this.
12.31pm GMT
The SNP’s Patrick Grady asks if May supports the principle in the Scotland Act that whatever is not reserved is devolved. So will Scotland get powers coming back from Brussels.
May says she will discuss this with the devolved administrations. No powers currently with the Scottish parliament will be taken back.
12.30pm GMT
May says it is sad that Labour councils cannot back plans to promote growth.
12.30pm GMT
The SNP’s Peter Grant asks about the detention fast-track system used for asylum seekers. This was recently found to be illegal.
May says she looked at this when she was home secretary. A number of changes were made. But the scheme is built on a simple principle: if someone’s asylum application seems very likely to be turned down, the government wants to know it will be able to deport them.
12.28pm GMT
Labour’s Kelvin Hopkins asks if May will support a plan to provide a large-gauge rail line for rail freight. This would allow more foreign trains to come to the UK.
May says the government will continue to encourage the carrying of freight by rail.
12.26pm GMT
Iain Stewart, a Conservative, asks about Milton Keynes, where is is MP. It is its 50th birthday, he says.
May congratulates the town on its birthday. It shows what you can achieve with a clear plan and strong local leadership.
12.25pm GMT
Asked by the Conservative Andrew Tyrie if she will tell President Trump she will not accept the use of torture, May says that the government does not support the use of torture and that that will continue to be the case.
12.22pm GMT
Snap PMQs verdict: That was probably May’s best PMQs since her debut. She used a classic ambush at the start to wrongfoot Corbyn (her surprise announcement in response to the previous question about publishing a white paper on Brexit) and after that she prevailed in all six questions. Corbyn, to his credit, responded to the fact that his most obvious line of attack had vanished reasonably well, but after that his questions on Brexit failed to hit home, and May successfully deployed a Sadiq Khan quote to quash his claims about her wanting to rip up workers’s rights. Towards the end Corbyn switched to Trump, but he could not successfully stand up the charge that May is offering Trump a “blank cheque” (perhaps she will, but Corbyn did not say anything that made the case). His challenge to May to condemn Trump’s misogyny was a good one, but even that did not work because May had a plausible response.
12.16pm GMT
Corbyn says the threats to rights are visible every day. He asks if May will congratulate those who marched against Trump on Saturday. And will May express concerns about his misogyny. Will May offer up parts of our public services to the US in a trade deal.
May says this government has introduced the national living wage and changes rules on zero-hours contracts. She is pleased she is meeting Trump early. That is a sign of the special relationship. But she is not afraid to speak frankly to the US president. She can do so because of that special relationship.
12.12pm GMT
Corbyn says the chief executive of Nissan is now saying he will have to re-evaluate his investment plans. May is threatening to turn the UK into a bargain basement country. Will May rule this out?
May says she expects to get a good deal. But she is also clear that she will not sign up to a bad deal. She says Corbyn should listen to Sadiq Khan who today said he does not think the government wants to weaken workers’ rights. As usual with Labour, the right hand is not talking to the far left.
12.08pm GMT
Jeremy Corbyn says May has given in to pressure from all sides. When will the white paper come? And why has it taken so long?
May says Corbyn wanted debates, and there have been debates. He asked for votes, and the Commons is getting votes. He asked for a plan, and she offered one. He asked for a white paper, and May has given him one. Corbyn asks about process. May is focused on outcomes, and getting the right result.
12.05pm GMT
Chris Philp, a Conservative, says May published a plan for Brexit. Does May agree that the best way to set out what the government will do would be to publish a white paper.
May says parliament will get every opportunity to scutinise the government’s plan. She recognises there is an appetite for a white paper. There will be one, she says.
12.04pm GMT
Labour’s Helen Jones asks why the prime minister is introducing cuts that threaten maintained nursery schools. They are the best drivers of social mobility, she says.
May says she wants to improve the number of good school places. As chairman of an educational authority in the 1990s, she introduced nursery places for every parent who wanted one.
12.03pm GMT
Theresa May starts by welcoming the Burmese Speaker. She also offers her sympathy to the police officer shot in Northern Ireland.
Later this week she will go to the US for talks with President Trump, she says.
12.02pm GMT
John Bercow, the Speaker, starts by saying the Speaker of the Burmese parliament is watching from the gallery.
12.01pm GMT
This is from the Times’ Patrick Kidd.
In anticipation of my move to edit Vogue I can report that Jeremy Corbyn seems to have a new suit for PMQs. It's olive greeny
11.58am GMT
Theresa May arrives for PMQs along with Boris Johnson and Philip Hammond. Boris having a good chat with Sir Michael Fallon.
11.57am GMT
PMQs is starting soon.
#PMQs soon -will Corbyn go on Brexit white paper/ Supreme Court or pivot back to NHS? Trump visit is a big issue too this week. Order paper: pic.twitter.com/GWSfuEz6Tj
11.02am GMT
As the BBC reports, in his Good Morning Scotland interview Michael Russell, the Scottish Brexit minister, also accused London of not listening to Edinburgh on this topic. He said:
What we need to do is get the best possible settlement for Scotland which means continuing membership of the single market at least through EFTA and EEA membership which is available and which our paper [Scottish government Brexit plan] deals with.
There are opportunities to have our voice heard, but is anybody listening? Because if nobody is listening then this is a pointless process.
10.51am GMT
Michael Russell, the Scottish government’s Brexit minister, will be making a statement on the article 50 judgment in the Scottish parliament this afternoon. In an interview with BBC Radio Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland he said that the Scottish government’s negotiations with London over Brexit were “getting harder by the day” and that the supreme court ruling had made things worse.
It has got a little worse, because the UK government has asserted constantly that they put the Sewel convention into legislation, and that this was a guarantee of consultation, and now we consider, to be blunt with you, they weren’t telling the truth. And it is very difficult to negotiate with people who aren’t telling you the truth.
As [the advocate general for Scotland - the UK government’s chief adviser on Scottish law] submitted, by such provisions [in the Scotland Act], the UK parliament is not seeking to convert the Sewel convention into a rule which can be interpreted, let alone enforced, by the courts; rather, it is recognising the convention for what it is, namely a political convention, and is effectively declaring that it is a permanent feature of the relevant devolution settlement. That follows from the nature of the content, and is acknowledged by the words (“it is recognised” and “will not normally”), of the relevant subsection. We would have expected UK parliament to have used other words if it were seeking to convert a convention into a legal rule justiciable by the courts.
The lord advocate and the counsel general for Wales were correct to acknowledge that the Scottish parliament and the Welsh assembly did not have a legal veto on the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union ...
In reaching this conclusion we do not underestimate the importance of constitutional conventions, some of which play a fundamental role in the operation of our constitution. The Sewel convention has an important role in facilitating harmonious relationships between the UK Parliament and the devolved legislatures. But the policing of its scope and the manner of its operation does not lie within the constitutional remit of the judiciary, which is to protect the rule of law.
10.12am GMT
Gerard Coyne, who is challenging Len McCluskey for the leadership of the Unite union, will today seek to make Donald Trump an election issue.
Last week McCluskey, who is a prominent Jeremy Corbyn supporter, described the election of Trump as “a real rejection of establishment politics, a real rejection of a political elite by people who have been left behind”.
Last week, Len said that Donald Trump’s election was a ‘real rejection of establishment politics, a real rejection of a political elite.’ I completely disagree. His election has put more billionaires into government than ever before, and he used his inauguration for anti-worker policies.
Trump is about to embark on an era in which profitability increasingly takes precedence over the health and safety of the workforce. If that happens, we must not allow the contagion to spread across the Atlantic to the UK. That is what Len should be warning about.
9.49am GMT
David Cameron has announced that he has got a new job. The Times, which breaks the story, describes it as “his first important political intervention since leaving Downing Street”, which might be stretching it a bit, but it is certainly noteworthy. He’s becoming president of the charity Alzheimer’s Research UK.
In an article for the Times (paywall) he says that when he was prime minister he made this a priority (he launched a dementia challenge in 2012 to improve awareness and organised a dementia summit a year later) and he says he wants to ensure that dementia research gets proper funding. He says:
Cancer research and stroke research deserve all their funding — but dementia shouldn’t be so far behind. After all, dementia remains one of our greatest health challenges, which leads to the third battle: winning continued support for scientific research that must be properly funded and promoted. Britain is in a great place to do this. Today, more scientists are working on dementia and there has been a renewed determination to catalyse world-class research.
And this leads to the final battle: ensuring we work internationally to demonstrate that this is a global challenge that we will only beat by working together.
9.10am GMT
MPs are still pondering what comes next after yesterday’s landmark supreme court ruling on article 50 and there is particular focus on what the Labour party will do. With most Labour MPs voting remain in the referendum, but 70% of them representing constituencies that voted leave, the party is in something of a quandary and the leadership has had to settle for a compromise; it won’t block Brexit, but it will try to use the amendments to the article 50 bill to shape the way it happens.
But last night Emily Thornberry, the shadow foreign secretary, put a particularly colourful interpretation on this. Speaking on Newsnight, she said Labour would be willing to engage in “hand-to-hand combat” as the bill goes through parliament to try to influence it. (She was speaking metaphorically, obviously; the party is not bringing back Eric Joyce.) Thornberry said:
Article 50, if it is going to be triggered, we will not get in the way of it, but we will try and amend the legislation in order to ensure that they keep coming back, that we keep an eye on them. And, if necessary, there will be hand-to-hand combat on this.
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