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All the action and reaction as David Cameron faces his weekly Commons questions session – followed by ministers on BBC cuts and control order changes.
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Shops lost sales in a crucial period The chancellor has blamed bad weather for a shock contraction in the UK economy, but how can snow have such a dramatic effect?
Tuesday’s official figures showed that the economy had taken quite a hit from the snow at the end of 2010.
Last year, it was discussed whether snow might actually be good for the economy. Why has it been so bad this time round?
That winter there was much talk of snow effects, but little sign of permanent impact on the official figures.
The figures on the construction sector, for example, showed it had a very difficult time in the first three months of 2010, which could be partly blamed on the weather, but then recovered extremely strongly in the following three months as builders caught up on delayed projects.
It is important to distinguish between a genuine dead loss for the economy and spending that is just being delayed.
The snow this winter appears to have had a greater effect than last winter.
Once again, the construction sector has taken a hit, which we can probably expect to be made up in 2011.
But other areas may not be made up. Last week’s retail sales figures showed a fall of more than 10% in sales at petrol stations in December, which reflects people leaving their cars at home as a result of difficult driving conditions.
Lots of people could not get into work as a result of the snow, but not all of them cost the economy anything.
Some freelance or casual workers will not have been paid for the days they did not work, and cafes, restaurants, taxi drivers and train operators will not make back all of the money that they lost as a result of people staying at home.
Some people work in sectors where a missed day cannot be made up with a bit of overtime or slightly delayed deliveries, but if you are a hairdresser, for example, then the people who were going to come in for a trim but cancelled because of snow are pretty likely to make another appointment.
It is also important not to forget the gains to the economy from snow. Utility companies had a bumper December as people were forced to turn up their heating to cope with the coldest December on record.
Also, last week’s retail sales figures showed significant growth in sales of winter clothing.
Halfords announced in a trading statement that its sales of car maintenance products had risen.
The big difference between this winter’s snow and last winter’s snow was the timing.
Several big shopping centres were forced to close in the weekend before Christmas, meaning that some people did not get their gifts until January, if at all.
Cafes and restaurants were among the businesses worst hit by the weather This is the crucial point. If you were planning to go out in the first week in December to buy a drill and actually you had to go and buy it in the second week, the economy would barely bat an eyelid.
But if you were going to buy it on 23 December and instead had to buy it on 27 December, it is a big deal.
The difference to the economy of having buying sprees at full-price pre-Christmas and at cut-price in the sales is significant and will not be made up later in the year.
Also, many people will have been planning pre-Christmas drinks and meals with friends and colleagues, which will have been cancelled or delayed.
Even the part of the Office for National Statistics (ONS) that calculates the official growth figures for the economy had to postpone its Christmas party because of the weather, and will not be holding it until April.
Last winter, the snow was timed much more favourably, coming mainly in January.
This year’s Christmas trading statements from big retailers were full of comments about the weather.
The boss of Tesco said that its performance had been “hindered” by the “disruptive effects of the severe winter weather conditions”, while Dixons said: “The adverse weather conditions reduced footfall in the run up to Christmas day.”
So while last year it could be argued that in the medium term the snow had not done the economy much harm, this year the effect has been much more damaging.
The ONS said that the snow had knocked 0.5% off the economic growth figures, which is a considerable amount of lost growth.
Some of that will be made back, perhaps by the construction sector as happened last time, and perhaps by bumper January sales shopping and delayed parties, but a significant proportion of it is probably lost to the economy for ever.
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Scientists solve the mystery of the seahorse’s strange and beautiful shape with slow-motion footage showing how it helps them to feed.
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Japanese car manufacturer Toyota is to recall nearly 1.7 million vehicles worldwide over concerns about a possible fuel leakage.
About 1.2 million models are being recalled in Japan and 421,000 overseas, including 140,000 of the Avensis models in Europe.
Japan’s transport ministry said slight cracks could appear in fuel pipes which could cause leakages if untreated.
No accidents have been reported because of the flaw, said Toyota.
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An epic battle between the government and Labour peers over plans to change the way MPs are elected could be nearing its end in the Lords.
Ministers aim to complete the committee stage of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill later.
But Labour is still resisting plans to cut the number of MPs and redraw constituency boundaries.
The bill, which MPs have approved, must become law by 16 February for a planned referendum to be held on 5 May.
The BBC understands talks are going on behind the scenes between coalition ministers and Labour peers over a possible compromise – with the government under pressure to give more leeway over plans to standardise the size of constituencies.
Wednesday’s debate will be the bill’s 14th Lords committee day – thought to be the most since 1971, when peers spent 18 days on the Industrial Relations Bill.
Under the AV system, voters rank candidates in their constituency in order of preference.
Anyone getting more than 50% of first-preference votes is elected.
If no-one gets 50% of votes, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and their backers’ second choices allocated to those remaining.
This process continues until one candidate has at least 50% of all votes in that round.
Vote reform: Where parties stand Q&A: Alternative Vote referendum
Three further provisional days have been scheduled for the committee stage next week, if no deal can be reached on Wednesday.
If Royal Assent is not received by 16 February, the referendum date could be in doubt – although ministers may seek to force the measure through the Lords by a series of “guillotine” motions.
This would be unprecedented and likely to result in widespread opposition in the House of Lords, which traditionally is self-regulating when it comes to debates.
Another option could be to find a way of reducing the statutory 10 weeks granted to the Electoral Commission to prepare for a referendum, to allow the bill to complete its passage, the BBC understands.
The bill’s report stage and third reading are still to come.
Ministers have accused Labour peers of time-wasting as they seek to separate the referendum on a move to the Alternative Vote (AV), which they support, from the bill’s plans to cut the number of MPs from 650 to 600.
Coalition ministers insist they are part of the same package of reforms.
Peers had already spent more than 98 hours debating the bill by Tuesday morning, including a two-day second reading in November and a 21-hour all-night sitting last week.
Tuesday’s debate lasted eight and a quarter hours, as peers dealt with 10 out of the remaining 50 groups of amendments.
But there were signs that Labour peers’ alleged delaying tactics had finally ended, as one amendment was dealt with in 34 minutes, the next in 11, another in 17, and the last in just four minutes.
Lib Dem Justice minister Lord McNally was, meanwhile, taken ill during the debate in the early hours of Tuesday. He was taken to hospital with what a ministerial colleague said was gastric flu.
The government has suffered two defeats in the Lords over the planned legislation, and ministers will have to decide whether to risk further delay by asking MPs to overturn them when the bill returns to the Commons.
The Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill would schedule a referendum on bringing in the alternative vote (AV) system for Westminster elections on 5 May.
It also contains provisions for the number of MPs to be cut and for constituency boundaries to be re-drawn so that they are of roughly equal size.
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An unlikely sight has appeared off the the coast of Miami – a grand piano sitting on a sand bank.
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Wi-fi networks are springing up all around the UK Mobile operator O2 is launching free wireless in the UK, which it promises will be double the size of existing networks by 2013.
Initially the hotspots will be available in 450 O2-owned sites but will be expanded to other locations, including shops and restaurants.
Previously 02 had offered free wi-fi on some of its tariffs via BT Openzone and The Cloud.
The Cloud is rumoured to be close to sealing a buy-out deal with Sky.
O2 said access to the hotspots would be through a simple sign-up process and would be free to both 02 and non-02 customers.
For Jeremy Green, a principal analyst with Ovum, the move is a “step in the right direction” to sorting out 02’s capacity issues, brought about by high iPhone ownership and the increasing desire for data on the move.
“450 sites is not fantastic coverage and wi-fi isn’t something that smartphone users will be able to rely on but it is a gesture in the right direction,” he said.
He said it was “surprising” that O2 was prepared to offer it free to non-customers, something the firm is hoping to fund via advertising.
In a swipe at BT’s Fon network, which offers connections which piggyback on BT home broadband networks, O2 said that its service would offer “premium public hotspots, as opposed to using residential connections with limited bandwidth”.
BT’s Openzone and Fon networks are currently the biggest networks in the UK.
The second largest The Cloud claims to have around 22,000 hotspots.
BT recently launched an iPad app allowing its broadband customers to gain access to wi-fi hotspots around the country.
It already has Android and iPhone apps, which has proved popular, attracting 400,000 downloads.
Rival Virgin Media is also toying with the idea of creating a nationwide wi-fi network.
O2 wants to help kick-start more wi-fi usage.
“Only 20% of people who have access to free public wi-fi on 02 tariffs actively use it despite the majority of devices being wi-fi enabled,” said O2’s business development director Tim Sefton
“We know that wi-fi as a technology has great potential and can be a very fast service, however customers are discouraged by barriers which include complexity in activation, uncertainty of where wi-fi is free and the variable quality of the current experience,” he added.
Mr Green said that 02’s wi-fi network would have to go hand-in-hand with other network upgrades.
O2 said that it is continuing to invest in its existing network but Mr Sefton confessed to UK technology news site TechRadar that it would be “years rather than months before we’ll have a commercial 4G network”.
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Russia is launching a massive privatisation programme Russia will take centre stage at Davos later on Wednesday when Dmitry Medvedev opens the World Economic Forum.
The president’s trip has been overshadowed by a bomb blast earlier this week at a Moscow airport which killed 35 people.
Mr Medvedev shortened his trip, but did not cancel it.
His appearance before the global business elite is seen as a major opportunity to outline his country’s massive privatisation programme.
But investors risk being put off by domestic politics.
Vladivostok, which I visited for this month’s Russia Business Report, was seen as a commercial backwater for decades, but is now considered a potential opportunity.
It is on the threshold of the fast-growing economies of Asia – 9000 km from Moscow but just 1300 km from Beijing.
The mineral riches of nearby Siberia and oil pipelines both travel West to markets in Europe.
But now with growth in Asia burgeoning, the city has found renewed significance as Russia’s shipping gateway to the East.
“Cooperation between Russia and Asia is already very diverse and includes natural resources such as energy and ore,” says Alexander Abramov at the Far Eastern Centre for Economic Development.
Russia Business Report is a television programme for BBC World News. Every month we take a look at the latest trends in the Russian economy and business world.
Watch the next programme on Saturday, 29 January at 0330 GMT and 1830 GMT and on Sunday, 30 January at 1130 GMT and 1830 GMT.
“And of course, Russia will export everything the growing Chinese economy needs.”
As the country works to redefine its trade relationships, it is also trying to woo foreign capital to boost the economy.
Vladivostok’s proximity to markets in the East make it an ideal launchpad.
The Apec summit, a high profile meeting between Asia-Pacific leaders will take place here next year.
Russia is desperate to present itself as open, modern and innovative but what concerns foreign companies most of all is the country’s rule of law.
The recent second verdict against former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky was seen by many foreign investors as a reminder of the all-pervasive nature of politics in Russia.
Russians themselves are well aware that how the country wishes to be perceived often finds itself at odds with how it is actually viewed.
Even within the Kremlin, the chief economic advisor to the president has admitted to an image problem.
This year, with an ambitious privatisation programme to get underway, Russia needs to put its best foot forward.
Its central role at the World Economic Forum in Davos will give important insights into how it plans to do that.
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The service was launched after a gap of 41 years A direct train service linking Wrexham with London via Shropshire is to finish this week, less than three years after it was reinstated.
The service from north Wales to London Marylebone returned in April 2008 after a gap of 41 years.
The Wrexham and Shropshire train company blamed falling customers numbers in the economic downturn.
It said it would help 55 staff find alternative jobs when the service ends on Friday.
They were given the news on Tuesday evening.
The service had run five times a day but then dropped to four and was reduced to three last December.
Those who have used the service have been full of praise, and it scored a remarkable 99% satisfaction rating in an independent survey.
When it launched, the service stopped at 10 stations between Wrexham and London including Shrewsbury, Telford, Wolverhampton and Banbury.
I’m afraid that it was always likely.
Originally this was set up by a rival company to Chiltern, which runs most of the services on that line, and eventually they both became owned by Deutsche Bahn, the German state railway.
So it was no longer really viable for Deutsche Bahn to be running services that were rival to its main franchise services.
They were very nice trains. I did travel on it a couple of times.
It used to be real old-fashioned service, with friendly staff, nice food and a very different atmosphere from the sort of modern glass and aluminium boxes that we’re used to these days.
He was speaking to BBC Radio Wales
The Wrexham, Shropshire and Marylebone Railway Company began as a joint partnership between Renaissance Trains, which runs the Hull to London service, and Laing Rail.
It is now run by Chiltern, an offshoot of DB, the German state railway operator, and has been struggling to gain enough passengers to make it a going concern.
In a letter handed out to passengers at Wrexham General station on Wednesday morning, Wrexham and Shropshire chairman Adrian Shooter said the firm lost £2.8m in 2010.
He said: “We have done everything possible to try to reduce the losses.
“We have reached the conclusion that the business has no prospect of providing a return on investment.”
Mr Shooter said staff were being sought alternative jobs in the railway industry.
He added that Wrexham and Shropshire tickets for after this Friday would be accepted on appropriate Virgin Trains, Arriva Trains Wales, London Midland and Chiltern Railways services to and from London Euston and London Marylebone.
In a statement, the firm said that despite having attempted to increase passenger numbers, it had determined that the business has no prospect of reaching profitability and providing a return on investment.
It said: “Wrexham & Shropshire is not insolvent nor is it being placed in administration and all outstanding financial commitments will be met.
“Alternative employment opportunities within the railway industry are being sought for the 55 employees, and all staff wages and full redundancy entitlements will be paid.”
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Jonathan Trott hits 102 as England keep alive their hopes of winning the one-day series against Australia with a 21-run victory in Adelaide.
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Oxfam says hundreds of thousands of people remain homeless six months after the floods Six months after Pakistan’s worst monsoon floods in 80 years, Oxfam says the crisis is far from over and could even get worse.
The UK-based agency says malnutrition levels in the south have soared, and the aid community has only “scratched the surface of human need”.
At least 170,000 people remain in relief camps and swathes of land are still under foul water in the south.
Pakistan’s government is to halt most emergency relief efforts this month.
The UN appeal for $2bn (£1.26bn) to rebuild Pakistan remains only 56% funded.
Oxfam’s report, Six month into the floods, is warning that this could put at risk large numbers of people who still need help.
Neva Khan, head of the aid agency in Pakistan, said: “Oxfam is currently helping nearly 1.9 million people – one of our biggest programmes worldwide – but this is dwarfed by the number of people who are in need.
“The aid community has done a tremendous amount, but given the immense scale of this disaster we have only scratched the surface.”
Amid sub-zero winter temperatures, there were more than 200,000 cases of chest infections such as pneumonia reported in the second week of January alone, says Oxfam.
The UN says 170,000 flood victims remain in relief camps.
Oxfam says the total number of homeless people is much higher when taking into account those living in tents beside wrecked homes, or with friends and relatives.
The aid agency also says that malnutrition levels also remain stubbornly high.
And it warns that another food crisis looms because so many crops were lost in the disaster and most farmers missed the next planting season.
Oxfam says that if it provided land for labourers, investing more in disaster management and other measures, Pakistan could “salvage a new beginning from the debris” of the flood disaster.
Although the death toll from last summer’s deluge was relatively low – claiming about 1,750 lives – between 14 and 20 million people were affected.
The floods started in the mountainous north and surged south, destroying 1.2m homes and damaging about 14% of Pakistan’s land under cultivation.
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What would Kant say to social climbers? While getting on in the world and gaining status is a priority for many, philosopher Mark Vernon says thinkers like Aristotle have mulled over questions such as whether social mobility is good for centuries.
Is social mobility good? The immediate response would be yes, of course.
Who could argue against lifting people out of poverty, rewarding individuals according to merit, and ensuring equal opportunities for all? Surely, a more socially mobile world is a more just world.
This is why BBC Lab UK has devised a class survey to test if the traditional class divisions still apply.
The moral upside of social mobility is particularly clear in a Kantian approach to ethics.
German philosopher Immanuel Kant was very clear that an enlightened culture is one that does not rely on inherited traditions, authorities and social structures. To be enlightened is to question and challenge such aristocracies, be they aristocracies of wealth, politics or the church. Social enlightenment brings justice in its wake.
The class test takes about 25 minutesCovers wealth and job type, as well as interests and social circleAims to find out if traditional divisions of working, middle and upper still applyTake the class survey More tests from BBC Lab UK
It also enables the individual to take responsibility for their own lives, and not be weighed down by cultural constraints. It’s the kind of justice that spreads freedom throughout society, based on just deserts rather than birthright.
But there’s a price to pay for social mobility that other ways of looking at ethics highlight.
The utilitarian approach to life, associated with philosopher Jeremy Bentham, always returns to a single question – what makes for more happiness in the world?
Does social mobility achieve that? Well, it might.
But social mobility also produces dislocation. People migrate to cities and find themselves isolated from their family, and constantly having to make new friends – relationships that might be fun but not very deep. They may be richer, but are they happier?
The new meritocracy
There’s another problem. In a socially mobile world, life’s rewards are no longer the preserve of elites, but are distributed according to merit.
Broadcaster Andrew Neil says the meritocracy – politics at least – is grinding to a haltToday’s politicians increasingly come from privileged stockHis documentary Posh and Posher is on BBC Two, 26 Jan at 2100 GMTAndrew Neil on those who run the country
So what happens if you feel you don’t receive your fair share of life’s rewards? You’ve now only got yourself to blame. In an elitist world, you could blame your birth. In a socially mobile world, what you get is more likely to be thought of as what you deserve.
There’s another concern. It’s raised by the third approach to justice, that of virtue ethics, associated with Aristotle.
The virtue ethicist would want to ask whether a socially mobile world rewards certain kinds of ability more than others. For example, someone with skills in banking or sales can do pretty well in a market society such as ours. But someone with skills as an artist or a mother may well find it hard to make ends meet.
Further, the virtue ethicist asks, does a socially mobile world actually undermine certain roles that are great goods – such as the arts or being a mother?
These things contribute to the common good. They are part of any just, flourishing society. And yet, social mobility may sideline them by not appreciating them.
This is not to say that a virtue ethics approach is against mobility.
What it would suggest, though, is that a good society needs to have ways of rewarding individuals that contribute things of moral, not just material, worth.
That might be a society which funds the arts, encourages the humanities as well as sciences, and doesn’t forget that what goes on in the home matters at least as much as what goes on in the marketplace.
Mark Vernon, the author of Philosophy For The Curious and Ethics For The Curious, will tackle more modern dilemmas throughout the week. Tomorrow, should victims have a say in sentencing criminals?
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Riot police used water cannons to disperse demonstrators Egypt appears to have clamped down on web services, such as Twitter, that have been used to help organise anti-government protests in Cairo.
Twitter confirmed that its service has been blocked in Egypt on Tuesday from around 1600GMT.
A Swedish mobile video site called Bambuser also reported that it had been blocked around the same time.
However, the Facebook page used to co-ordinate many of the protests has remained online.
Facebook has not said whether it has implemented any technical measures to keep the site up and running.
The social network, which has more than 600m users, recently was forced to intervene when it emerged that political protest pages in Tunisia were being hacked and passwords stolen, seemingly at the behest of the former government.
The site implemented a series of technical measures to counter the attacks, including encrypting all requests for the site from within Tunisia.
Details of the blocks in Egypt began to emerge on Tuesday afternoon, as thousands of people joined a “day of revolt” against the government of President Hosni Mubarak.
Initially it was unclear whether state authorities were blocking internet access or if mobile networks were simply overloaded by the numbers of people gathering in the streets.
The BBC’s Jon Leyne, who is in Cairo, said the protests like this in Egypt were rare
Twitter were at first unwilling to comment, instead directing people towards Herdict, a website created by a group at Harvard University, which collects reports of websites that are down.
The site has seen a small spike in the number of reports about Twitter from Egypt.
But overnight, Twitter issued a statement..
“We can confirm that Twitter was blocked in Egypt around 8am PT today. It is impacting both Twitter.com and applications.”
The block had previously been confirmed by BBC readers and telecom operator Vodafone Egypt, which sought to reassure customers that it was not responsible.
“We didn’t block Twitter – it’s a problem all over Egypt and we are waiting for a solution,” it said.
Some Twitter messages – many tagged #jan25 to show they were in support of the demonstrations – seemed to have got through via text messages and some third-party applications.
Bambuser, a service that allows people to stream live video from a phone to a website or a Facebook page, also said that it had been hit by the ban.
“We are working hard to ensure access resumes for the Egyptian community and stand by them in their quest for the right to protest,” it said.
In support of the protests, a collective of online “hacktivists” known as Anonymous claimed to have taken down the Egyptian interior ministry’s web page.
Anonymous came to prominence for its cyber-attacks on the websites of companies it deemed to be anti-Wikileaks.
It has since turned its attention to supporting the protests in Tunisia and Egypt.
The group uses so-called “denial-of-service” attacks, that seek to swamp websites with large volumes of traffic, until they are knocked offline.
The group was one of many that also offered advice to the protesters on how to evade blocks on sites and services.
However, some sites appear to have escaped the block.
Google-owned video sharing website YouTube, which has been used to share film of the protests, has seemingly not been blocked.
Protesters are also turning to other digital tools to help.
For example, a map has been set up by the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, for people to report arrests, and harassment during the protests.
The digital blocks come as the government issued a ban on street protests.
Public gatherings, protests and marches are all now prohibited, the country’s official news agency reports.
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The device was found on the Antrim Road Police believe dissident republicans are behind a suspected “large improvised explosive device” found on north Belfast’s Antrim Road.
An alert started after calls claiming to be from dissident republican group Oglaigh na heireann.
Police said they cannot confirm yet if the device is a real bomb or a hoax.
The road has been closed since 1600 GMT on Tuesday and is likely to remain so until this evening. Up to 100 homes and businesses have been evacuated.
The alert is close to Antrim Road police station.
Army bomb disposal experts are still examining the device and have carried out cntrolled explosions on a suspect car.
PSNI Chief Superintendent Mark Hamilton said: “There’s no way I’m going to be opening the road again until I’m sure that there’s no risk of death or injury to anybody living or working in that area of the Antrim Road.
“We’ve received a number of calls over a 24-hour period and the last one in particular led us to believe we were looking for an unexploded bomb in an unstable condition.”
Ch Supt Hamilton said 40 to 50 families had been moved from their homes, while a children’s home had also been evacuated and people under sedation in a clinic had had to be moved.
He said dissident republicans were likely to be responsible.
“The people we’re dealing with want to wreck this community – they live in this community but they want to wreck it. They want to kill people in the community, they want to kill police officers,” he said.
“If this turns out to be a real device, its madness, because it will have been lying there and hundreds of people will have walked past it.”
‘Disruptive’
Some families who were moved from their homes were put up at Fortwilliam and McCrory Presbyterian Church overnight.
Reverend Lesley Carroll said the alert had been “very disruptive”.
Sinn Fein MLA Gerry Kelly said police had received three coded warnings. But he said the calls were very confusing.
“They said there was a bomb within the distance of some mile along the Antrim Road. That was checked out,” Mr Kelly said.
“In a second phone call, they said it was somewhere on the Antrim Road and in the third phone call it has been narrowed down to somewhere around the Glandore area.
“They said in their latest phone call it was in a dangerous condition. We need to know where that is so that something can be done about it.”
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Future UK governments will have to hold a referendum if they want to get involved in a Europe-wide prosecuting authority, a minister has told MPs.
Europe Minister David Lidington offered the “referendum lock” as MPs debated the European Union Bill.
The European Union Bill is meant to prevent the handover of further powers to Brussels without a public vote.
But Labour say it is a “political gesture” to appease Eurosceptic Tories. The Commons debate will continue later.
On day three of the bill’s committee stage on Tuesday, Mr Lidington said the government had already explicitly ruled out taking part in a European Public Prosecutor’s Office in the coalition agreement.
But he said the changes to the EU Bill “would ensure that a referendum would be required in all cases before the United Kingdom could join the European Public Prosecutor or an extension of that prosecutor’s powers, whether that decision was taken before or after that prosecutor had been set up or before or after the powers of that prosecutor had been extended”.
Former Conservative Cabinet minister, and leading Eurosceptic, John Redwood said: “I’m very grateful for that concession which does improve the bill.”
“If the government are so committed not to transfer power then why do we need this bill”
Emma Reynolds Shadow foreign minister
But he added: “Can you not understand that most people think criminal justice is essential for the sovereignty of themselves in parliament and that this same provision should apply for all opt-ins under the criminal justice provisions.
“Why won’t you concede that?”
Mr Lidington said opt-ins on justice and home affairs would be debated on Wednesday.
He also reassured MPs that the government would not ask the public to vote again on an EU treaty change transferring more powers to Brussels if they had earlier rejected it.
“I simply don’t believe that any British government is going to be defeated at a referendum and then come forward and say to its electorate ‘no, you’ve got it wrong, let’s dissolve the people and have a new one’. This really doesn’t make political sense,” he told MPs.
Shadow foreign minister Emma Reynolds, for Labour, said the EU Bill was solely designed to appease Conservative backbenchers – something she said it had failed to do.
“If the government are so committed not to transfer power then why do we need this bill?,” she asked MPs.
“Is it that their own backbenchers don’t trust them to keep to the text of the coalition document. This bill is unnecessary, it’s a dog’s breakfast, it’s a political gesture to calm the fears of the Eurosceptics of those sitting behind the minister.”
Lib Dem President Tim Farron said that although, on paper, the Bill was not necessary, MPs did need to “make a statement which guarantees, if you like, that this place is sovereign and that the public’s power over our membership of the European Union is ultimate and paramount”.
The Bill includes a “sovereignty clause” which is meant to assert the primacy of the Westminster parliament – but some Conservative backbenchers have said it does not do enough to claw back power from Brussels.
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