Theresa May will attend the 1922 committee of Tory MPs tomorrow, Tory sources have confirmed, in what is set to be a fiery exchange over the handling of the Brexit negotiations. (See 16.53)
Three Tory MPs have quit a Commons committee chaired by the Speaker, John Bercow, citing a failure to tackle Westminster bullying. (See 15.09)
No 10 denied any rows at the cabinet meeting, although ministers told May she had to ensure that any backstop arrangements designed to avoid a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland were not indefinite. (See 14.52)
A specialist police team set up to investigate crimes against MPs dealt with 242 complaints last year, compared with 102 in its first year of operation. The unit launched in August 2016 after the murder of the Labour MP Jo Cox.
Downing Street said it is “deeply concerned” at reports of the discovery of body parts of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. G7 foreign ministers have released this statement:
The G7 foreign ministers, of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States of America, and the high representative of the European Union, condemn in the strongest possible terms the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, which the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has confirmed took place in its consulate in Istanbul.
The confirmation of Mr Jamal Khashoggi’s death is a first step toward full transparency and accountability. However, the explanations offered leave many questions unanswered.
We reiterate our expectation for a thorough, credible, transparent and prompt investigation by Saudi Arabia, in full collaboration with the Turkish authorities, and a full and rigorous accounting of the circumstances surrounding Mr Khashoggi’s death. Those responsible for the killing must be held to account. Saudi Arabia must put in place measures to ensure something like this can never happen again.
The circumstances of Mr Khashoggi’s death reaffirm the need to protect journalists and freedom of expression around the world.
We also extend our deepest condolences to Mr Khashoggi’s family, his fiancée, and his friends.
That’s all from me today, many thanks for your comments. Hopefully we’re not too disappointing in the shoes of the irreplaceable Andrew Sparrow, who is back next week.
A Tory source said May would go to the 1922 committee meeting to make a speech and address concerns of some colleagues.
“She is going and taking the opportunity to talk to colleagues,” the source said. Senior cabinet ministers are also expected to attend.
Theresa May talks to a colleague. Photograph: Alastair Grant/AP
The meeting was the subject of some of the more dark speculations in the Sunday papers.
One Tory briefed the Mail on Sunday that the PM should “bring her own noose” – rhetoric that drew cross-party condemnation. The senior Brexiter Steve Baker said the anonymous MP should have the whip withdrawn.
The Mail on Sunday piece also said MPs would be expecting an “uncharacteristically powerful, persuasive and coherent” address in order to head off a no-confidence vote.
The Sun’s political editor Tom Newton Dunn says May will go to the 1922 committee of Tory MPs tomorrow. It is likely to be a testing meeting although some of the more vicious briefing from MPs in the Sunday newspapers may well buy her a more sympathetic audience.
I'm told the PM will now appear in front of 1922 Committee tomorrow night. This will be quite a moment.
I’m just back from the afternoon lobby briefing from Downing Street.
The spokesman refused to comment on the resignation of three members of the government from the Commons committee chaired by Bercow, saying it was an individual decision.
They will set out their own reasons. The PM has said it is important that the house leadership responds fully and promptly to Dame Laura Cox’s recommendations. She has said there can be no place for bullying or harassment in any workplace.
The spokesman dismissed reports on RTÉ that the EU will offer May a UK-wide customs union as a way around the Irish backstop issue, but one that will have to be negotiated beyond the withdrawal agreement as a separate treaty.
Take any of it with a pinch of salt. The PM set out our position yesterday in relation to the backstop, that remains the case today.
The prospect of Northern Ireland being placed in a different customs arrangement to the rest of the UK is unacceptable.
The House of Commons has voted to pass a law to that effect.
No 10 said reports of the body parts of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi being discovered were ‘deeply disturbing’
Our thoughts are with the family, for whom the reports must be particularly distressing. The location of Mr Khashoggi’s body is just one of the questions we need answers to. As such, we will wait for the full result of the Turkish investigation.
No 10 would not commit to backing reforms to abortion law in Northern Ireland, even though several ministers voted in favour of a private member’s bill, including the international development secretary, Penny Mordaunt. Amendments have also been submitted to the Northern Ireland bill tomorrow.
Amendments will be selected by the Speaker, I wouldn’t pre-empt that. Abortion has been a free vote in the past. The prime minister has consistently said that abortion has always been a devolved matter and the best way forward is the issue is decided by locally accountable politicians in the Northern Ireland assembly.
Of course, there is no current executive in Northern Ireland. (This bill tomorrow is in fact to give civil servants new powers to keep the country running.)
This is Jessica Elgot - taking over the blog into the afternoon.
The Speaker’s office has responded to the MPs’ resignations, saying he accepted them “with regret” and would consider the future of the committee.
Dame Laura Cox’s report has highlighted some of the most significant challenges women face in our parliamentary culture.
In the spirit of an independent approach, the Speaker feels it is right to reflect on the best means of tackling these cultural issues via the house’s response to the Cox report.
He will therefore consider the future of the reference group following the commission meeting tomorrow.
John Bercow speaks during prime minister’s questions in the House of Commons Photograph: PA
Mims Davies, one of the MPs to resign, has also released a statement.
I felt that remaining on this (committee) currently did not sit right following Dame Laura Cox’s report, and as this committee is chaired by the Speaker, I sadly felt in a difficult position. I did not take this decision lightly.
Three Tory MPs quit committee over Bercow bullying claims
Jessica Elgot
Three Tory MPs have quit a Commons committee chaired by the Speaker, John Bercow, citing a failure to tackle with Westminster bullying.
Education minister Anne Milton, Tory whip Mims Davies and Will Quince, a PPS in the Ministry of Defence, have all resigned from the committee on representation and inclusion.
The move came ahead of a crucial House of Commons meeting on Wednesday where MPs and independent members will set out their response to a damning independent report by Dame Laura Cox, which said parliament was failing to deal with abuse and that senior management should step aside.
Bercow has been the subject of multiple bullying claims, including from his former private secretary, which he vehemently denies.
Quince has said he “cannot in good conscience remain a member of the group while Bercow is chair”. He said he had reached the conclusion Bercow could not resolve the serious issues raised by the report.
Things are moving with John Bercow. Three members of the Government have resigned from a committee he chairs in protest over Dame Laura Cox report on bullying. Will Quince spells out his decision here: pic.twitter.com/0WaeScip13
The committee was originally set up in 2016 by Bercow to respond to a report on how to make parliament more inclusive.
Other members include Labour MPs Margaret Hodge, Gavin Shuker, Seema Malhotra and Jess Phillips and Lib Dem MP Tom Brake. Tory Maria Miller, a fierce critic of Bercow, and the SNP’s Lisa Cameron are also members.
It looks like the defence secretary, Gavin Williamson, is in line for a telling off after breaking parliamentary rules and taking a picture in the Commons chamber.
Gavin Williamson keeps flouting the Commons ban on photography and you wonder if someone will tell him to “go away and shut up”. pic.twitter.com/cGD1Mms3QT
After being alerted to the picture, the Commons press office tweeted: “Photography is not generally permitted in the House of Commons chamber, and where it is seen or reported to be happening the individual in question will be asked to stop and reminded of the rules.”
Photography is not generally permitted in the House of Commons Chamber, and where it is seen or reported to be happening the individual in question will be asked to stop and reminded of the rules...
Here is our story on this morning’s lengthy cabinet meeting. Dan Sabbagh reports that ministers had “an impassioned” discussion about the importance of time-limiting any Brexit backstop arrangements agreed.
No 10 denied any row had taken place at the meeting, although ministers told Theresa May she had to ensure that any backstop arrangements designed to avoid a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland were not indefinite.
Ministers also exchanged views about how any mechanism to ensure the UK can quit the backstop could be constructed, in a discussion in which several ministers weighed in on the issue at the heart of British concerns about the Brexit talks.
My colleague Sarah Marsh reports that the number of alleged crimes against MPs has more than doubled in a year, prompting concern about the level of intimidation and abuse politicians are facing.
A specialist police team set up to investigate crimes against MPs dealt with 242 complaints last year, compared with 102 in its first year of operation. The unit launched in August 2016 after the murder of the Labour MP Jo Cox.
The data, obtained through freedom of information from the Metropolitan police’s parliamentary liaison and investigations team (Plait), was not broken down by the nature of the crimes.
Reports EU is prepared to offer May UK-wide customs arrangement
Lisa O'Carroll
RTE is reporting that the EU is to offer Theresa May a UK-wide customs arrangement as a way of breaking the impasse on the Irish border, writes our Brexit correspondent, Lisa O’Carroll.
RTE’s Europe editor, Tony Connelly, who has seen a draft of the latest proposal is reporting that a UK-wide deal could be offered in a treaty sitting outside both the withdrawal agreement and separate to the future relationship deal.
It would “feature prominently near the top of a re-drafted withdrawal agreement” and previous references to Northern Ireland being part of the EU’s customs territory removed, as previously reported.
The question is: will this get the two sides to the landing zone? The EU has been implacably opposed to a UK-wide customs deal while the prime minister has been implacably opposed to their Northern Ireland only deal for the backstop arrangement on the Irish border.
Yesterday the prime minister went further than before, laying down four new red lines for a backstop agreement, one of which was a “legally binding” UK-wide customs arrangement.
According to Connelly’s report this new EU customs proposal would be in a legal article, which might give May the comfort she needs.
However, the withdrawal agreement would still contain a Northern-Ireland only arrangement for a backstop and spell out how that would work under the union customs code, the basis of the EU customs union.
This may not be sellable to Brexiters but it is seems that creating some sort of bridge between legally binding withdrawal agreement and a customs arrangement in a standalone legal article is a fresh idea.
A 10 minute rule bill to end the criminalisation of abortion in Northern Ireland has passed by 208 votes to 123 in the Commons.
The bill, which was introduced by the Labour MP Diana Johnson, calls for a repeal of the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act, which criminalised any woman seeking an abortion with a theoretical maximum term of life imprisonment. The act was superseded by the Abortion Act 1967 in England and Wales, but it remains the law in Northern Ireland, forcing women to come to Britain to have abortions.
Can @DianaJohnsonMP explain her ten minute rule motion in less than 60 seconds? Find out why she wants to introduce a bill to amend the law relating to abortion in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Watch: https://t.co/Kah481qrgnpic.twitter.com/NceN3HN7YS
My colleague Dan Sabbagh reported her intention to present the bill to parliament on Sunday.
Johnson said her 10 minute rule bill would give MPs their first chance to vote on the abortion law in Northern Ireland since a May referendum overturned a ban in the Irish Republic.
The UK supreme court indicated in June that Northern Ireland’s abortion legislation was incompatible with human rights, although judges did not strike down the law on a technicality.
Johnson hopes that her bill will win enough support to force Theresa May to act, although there is no chance it will become law because the government will not give it parliamentary time. “I want to keep up the pressure on the government to allow MPs to have a proper vote,” Johnson said.
Responding to Johnson in the Commons, Conservative MP Fiona Bruce said the bill was “against the principle of devolution” and would “completely undermine the substance and spirit of the Good Friday agreement”. She said “it should be up to Northern Ireland to change their abortion law as, when and if they want to”.
The bill will have its second reading on 23 November.
Cabinet to receive weekly update on Brexit preparations
The latest from this morning’s lengthy cabinet meeting is that Theresa May has ordered a weekly update for ministers on the progress of preparations for Brexit – both with and without a withdrawal deal.
The prime minister’s official spokesman said the updates would be provided by the Brexit secretary, Dominic Raab, who told ministers at Tuesday’s meeting that “good progress” was being made.
PM has asked for cabinet to be given weekly updates on deal and no deal preparedness. On whether the government is prepared for no deal in the next couple of months, her spokesman says “yes” #Brexit
Government to consult on adding folic acid to flour to reduce birth defects
The Department for Health and Social Care has just announced a consultation on the mandatory fortification of flour with folic acid to prevent fetal abnormalities. A release on the department’s website says the consultation will launch in early 2019 and will “consider the evidence around folic acid fortification as well as the practicality and safety”.
Evidence from the Scientific Advisory Committee of Nutrition (SACN) suggests that expectant mothers can take folic acid during pregnancy to significantly reduce the risk of foetal abnormalities including:
spina bifida – where the membranes around the spine do not close properly and in some cases affect walking or mobility
anencephaly – where the majority of the brain never develops
Approximately 700 to 900 pregnancies are affected by neural tube defects each year in the UK.
Women who are trying to become pregnant are advised to take a daily supplement of 400 micrograms of folic acid before they conceive and during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. However, around half of pregnancies in the UK are unplanned, so many women are missing out on these nutrients early in their pregnancy.
Our health policy editor, Denis Campbell, reported on this issue earlier this month:
A host of government, NHS and advisory bodies support fortification, which already happens in more than 80 countries, including the US.
The move is also backed by medical royal colleges, including those representing professionals involved in babies’ and children’s health – obstetricians and gynaecologists, paediatricians and midwives. In the US there has been an estimated 23% reduction in neural tube defects (NTD) since folic fortification of flour was introduce in 1998.
Health Minister @SteveBrineMP announces a consultation on fortifying flour with folic acid to prevent birth defects such as spina bifida. He says he is convinced that the "evidence is overwhelming that this is something we should be doing." pic.twitter.com/fXbJy2DQlF
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