Theresa May tells Cabinet she will not agree deal 'at any cost' amid Irish border row
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Theresa May has told the cabinet she will not agree a Brexit deal "at any cost" amid a fresh row over the vexed issue of the Irish border.
The prime minister's spokesman said there remains "a significant amount of work to do" and sought to reassure twitchy ministers that she would brief them before agreeing any deal.
Addressing journalists at a briefing on Tuesday, Ms May's spokesman said:“The prime minister said she was confident of reaching a deal. She said that, while the UK should aim to secure a withdrawal agreement as soon as possible, this would not be done at any cost.
“The prime minister said that, once agreement was reached on a withdrawal agreement, it remains the case that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed and it will be subject to securing an acceptable full future framework.”
It comes Ms May had to call Irish premier Leo Varadkar yesterday, after Brexit secretary Dominic Raab angered Dublin by appearing to backslide on a commitment the UK had made to preventing a hard border.
"There can be no expiry date and there can be no unilateral exit clause, and if it were to be either of those things, the backstop would not be worth the paper it was written on," Mr Vardakar added on Tuesday.
"If we do have a backstop and if it is used, it may be to our advantage or necessary to have a review - which is very different to the exit clause that would let the UK withdraw, and that has been Irish government stance all along."
This liveblog is now closed, but see how the day in Westminster unfolded below
Most of Theresa May's cabinet are still at Number 10 after more than two hours, says BBC's political editor. Philip Hammond is now in the Commons for Treasury questions.
Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham has told MPs there were "problems" with how Facebook attempted to ensure users' data was deleted by organisations like Cambridge Analytica.
Facebook required signed confirmation the data had been deleted from "the heads of organisations" which obtained it, she said, but that was not always the case.
"We've found some problems with the signing of those authorisations - some of them weren't signed at all," Ms Denham told the Commons Culture, Media and Sport committee.
In addition, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has evidence Cambridge Analytica still held some of the data "as recently as spring 2018" despite claiming it had previously been deleted.
"The follow-up was less than robust and that's one of the reasons we fined Facebook £500,000," she added.
Ms Denham told the fake news inquiry: "The major concern that I have in this investigation is the very disturbing disregard that many of these organisations across the entire ecosystem have for the personal privacy of UK citizens and voters.
"If you look across the whole system, that is really what this report is about and we have to improve these practices for the future."
Asked to which organisations she is referring, Ms Denham replied: "Facebook, data brokers, political campaigns, data companies.
"As you know we're looking at political parties and their use of data so we really need to tighten up controls across the entire ecosystem because it matters to our democratic processes."
From Treasury Questions, Philip Hammond has been talking about Brexit.
It is not feasible to go back on the roll-out of universal credit, Whitehall's financial watchdog has said.
Sir Amyas Morse told MPs he thought the time had passed to reverse the decision to roll six working age benefits into one, which Labour has promised to scrap.
National Audit Office (NAO) head Sir Amyas told MPs: "We wrote a report recently on universal credit where one of the comments in the report that I explicitly, personally, inserted into it was that I didn't think there was any feasible possibility of going back on the universal credit project at this time.
"I believe there were lots of things that could be done, possibly, better in it, but I didn't think one of those things was a meaningful discussion about going back to seven or eight different forms of benefit.
"I'd thought we'd got past that point. The change process had gone too far for that to happen.
"When it started there was a very ambitious approach of trying to do everything in an agile basis which clearly didn't work out well and which I think the department had great difficulty executing."
A deal on the Irish border to break the Brexit deadlock is not close, the EU's chief negotiator has said.
Michel Barnier told Belgian broadcaster RTBF: "For now, we are still negotiating and I am not, as I am speaking to you this morning, able to tell you that we are close to reaching an agreement, since there is still a real point of divergence on the way of guaranteeing peace in Ireland, that there are no borders in Ireland, while protecting the integrity of the single market."
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar told the Theresa May on Monday that he was ready to consider a review mechanism as part of a "backstop" arrangement to keep the border with Northern Ireland open after Brexit.
But he made clear he would not accept an arrangement which gave the UK unilateral powers to ditch the customs union without the agreement of Brussels.
Emmanuel Macron has called for the creation of a “true European army” to allow the EU defend itself from threats ranging from Donald Trump to Vladimir Putin.
The French president has pushed for closer EU defence union since coming to power last year but has been so far met with limited success amid foot-dragging by other member states.
More here from our Europe correspondent Jon Stone:
The "growing epidemic" of cheap drugs such as spice and black mamba is turning Britain's town centres into "places that people fear to go", a Tory MP has said.
Ben Bradley urged the government to reclassify synthetic cannabinoids as class A drugs, warning their prevalence was becoming a "serious national problem".
The MP for Mansfield laid bare the "devastating impact" on communities, saying: "Synthetic cannabis is one of the cheapest drugs on the market but also one of the strongest.
"The effects of these drugs can leave users resembling zombies slumped in a state of semi-consciousness sometimes foaming at the mouth, sometimes passed out in the street.
"This is clearly having a negative impact on town centres and local economies, it's causing anxiety amongst shoppers and business owners, decreasing footfall and discouraging families from spending the day in the town centre."
Speaking in a Westminster Hall debate, Mr Bradley said the current class B classification was limiting the action that local services and the police could take, with forces "struggling to deal with it on a local level".
Such drugs, he added, were placing an "absolutely huge" resource drain on the NHS with extra strain being put on ambulance services, while prison officers were having to go home sick having inhaled fumes from people taking the drugs.
Mr Bradley said one prime spot for users was right outside his constituency office and one of his staff members had regularly resuscitated people.
Labour's Ruth Smeeth said one woman had a drug user jump into her car outside her house and refuse to get out, adding: "My constituent's four-year-old daughter was in the car. She was forced to leap out in terror and is now terrified."
A deal between Britain and the EU on the Irish border is not “close” despite hopes of a breakthrough, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator has warned.
Michel Barnier said there was “still a real point of divergence” on the Northern Ireland issue, after Theresa May called for a “review” mechanism to be attached to the EU’s planned backstop that would guarantee no hard border.
More from our Europe correspondent Jon Stone:
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