PMQs live: Theresa May bombarded with criticism over 'screeching' Budget U-turn
Just 20 minutes before start of PMQs, Chancellor backtracks on key fiscal policy
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Theresa May faces her weekly session of questions in the House of Commons this week amid a startling array of developing political stories. Here's the latest.
- May faces bruising questions over goverment u-turn on National Insurance rises
- Government performs humiliating u-turn with 20 minutes to go before PMQs
- Earlier, David Davis admits the government has done no assessment of a 'no deal' Brexit
- New figures show unemployment is down - but Brexit puts 200,000 UK construction jobs at risk
- Polls show high support for Scottish independence after Sturgeon calls for new referendum
- But SNP says it will cancel second vote if May offers a compromise on the EU single market
- With a report due on Tory election expenses, police interview an MP under caution
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Prime Minister's Questions this week comes as Theresa May is handed the power to trigger the start of Brexit; as the SNP declare their intention to hold a new referendum on Scottish independence; and as a potentially explosive report is due any day now into Tory expenses in the 2015 election.
Then there's the ongoing fallout from last week's Budget by Philip Hammond, which was describing as exhibiting "rookie errors" by a former Conservative Chancellor.
While it is never easy to predict what Jeremy Corbyn will interrogate Ms May on first, he also has a wealth of social issues to raise - from the crisis in the NHS to the dramatic impacts of Tory cuts to local government budgets.
On the Prime Minister's side, she is likely to highlight new figures which came out at 9.30am on Wednesday morning, showing another dip in unemployment
And she will no doubt hail the fact that the Article 50 bill was passed unchanged by Parliament, giving her the ability to "get on with Brexit" and trigger the two-year process before the end of this month.
Corbyn says there has been no apology, and that the Budget falls on those with the least broad shoulders - then sits down.
May says Corbyn doesn't seem to have "got the hang of this" - after Corbyn failed to ask a question.
She says the Budget will deliver good school places for every child, skills for young people and £2bn more funding for social care.
Corbyn says May should listen to head teachers, who can't balance the books in their schools because of budget cuts.
He says average working families will be £1,400 worse off as a result of the Budget. He asks what she is doing to help the poorest.
May says the Government has frozen VAT, fuel duty, and taken 3 million out of taking income tax altogether.
She says there are 1.8 million more good school places for children.
These are figures May has to hand - it is difficult to see how Corbyn can catch her out here.
Corbyn says the difference is that Labour wants good schools for every child - not something achieved by selective schools.
He says the Budget is unfair for cutting tax at the top end and encouraging bogus self-employment, and says the Government is dedicated to widening the gap and taking away benefits.
May says inequality has "gone down" in this Government.
And on schools again, she says the problem with Labour is that they oppose every measure brought forward to create more school places. She says Labour's approach is for parents to "take what is offered, good or bad".
She says again that Labour would "bankrupt Britain". "We're delivering, and he's just sitting there and going on protest marches."
Angus Robertson of the SNP up now. He says it is "welcome" the Prime Minister has admitted she "is for turning", a reference to Thatcher, calling the u-turn "screeching and embarrassing". May's look in response could kill.
He asks when May will announce an agreement between Westminster and the devolved governments of Britain on triggering Article 50.
May says Robertson is comparing "a group we've been a member of for 50 years" with "our country". She accuses the SNP of trying to "break the deep bonds of our shared history".
He accuses May of "wagging her finger" at Scotland.
He says she hasn't answered on when there will be an agreement with the Scottish Government before triggering Brexit.
"The PM promised an agreement," he says. "When will there be one?"
If there isn't one, he says, and if the UK doesn't fight to retain membership of the single market, "people in Scotland will have a referendum and we will have our say".
May says the Government will secure a "good deal for the whole of the United Kingdom".
Scotland will be leaving the EU, she says, whether it is a member of the UK or not. "What we need now is to unite, come together as a country and ensure we get the best deal for the whole of the United Kingdom."
Big reaction in the Commons to SNP MP Callum McCaig, who asks whether with the pound performing so badly the UK "can afford to be an independent country?" The implied contrast is with such comments made about Scotland.
After the laughter subsides, May says the UK has the sixth largest economy, and says the Goverment has reduced the deficit by two thirds. She also uses it as an opportunity to hail today's unemployment figures, the lowest since 1975.
And that's in for PMQs. In the reaction, it is largely damning about Corbyn's ability to hurt the Government over its extraordinary NICs u-turn.
Arguably the most effective questioner today was not Jeremy Corbyn or even Angus Robertson - but Yvette Cooper.
Brandishing what appears to be a copy of last year's Budget, she says there has been a £2bn u-turn in this Budget and there was a £4bn u-turn last year.
She asks: "Is that why they want to abolish spring Budgets - because they just keep ripping them up?"
May responded that she "welcomed" the measures in the Budget - to laughter - and highlights the money going to schools and social care - in other words, uncomfortably and awkwardly evading the question.
It's the sort of weak response Jeremy Corbyn failed to elicit in any of his questions.
A full report on Angus Robertson's line of questioning here, from political correspondent Ashley Cowburn
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