Tory minister defends axing migrant rescue – as it happened

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2014/oct/30/coalition-row-over-drugs-policy-politics-live

Version 0 of 1.

5.38pm GMT17:38

Afternoon summary

Here’s a round-up of the day:

That’s all from me. Andrew Sparrow is back on Monday to guide you through the political week but there will be a readers’ edition tomorrow.

I leave you with the news that Michael Gove, the chief whip, is obviously doing a sterling job at marshalling his troops in the Commons:

Shambles in the chamber as government whip fails to turn up to the bench and move the adjournment

5.35pm GMT17:35

Labour’s problems in Scotland have been highlighted not just by Jim Murphy but the party’s shadow deputy leader of the Commons, Thomas Docherty. This was him with some harsh words earlier on the BBC’s World at One:

The state that the Labour party is in right now is we are in a dreadful position. And we’ve got to be honest about ourselves. We have very low esteem with the electorate. The electorate looks at us and has no idea what our polices are. We have a moribund party in Scotland that seems to think that in-fighting is more important than campaigning. And we have a membership that is ageing and inactive. We can return to be the grown-up party that wants to be in government or we can self-indulge like a throwback to the 1980s and watch our party implode, the SNP win again, the Tories win again, and have another referendum.

5.05pm GMT17:05

This is the letter from Fiona Woolf, the chairman of child abuse inquiry to the home affairs committee. Keith Vaz says it shows officials watered down the letters to downplay her contact with Lord Brittan, the former home secretary who is likely to be called to the inquiry over a dossier alleging Westminster paedophile activity that went missing from his department.

PS The website is having some technical issues that mean all comments have disappeared. It’s being investigated as I type.

Updated at 5.06pm GMT

4.52pm GMT16:52

It seems like a complete stand-off between the Tories and Lib Dems on drug policy. Electoral strategists from both sides are probably quite enjoying the fact the row has been reported as a clear dividing line.

However, there was one small bit of policy that was actually agreed, which went largely unnoticed when Lib Dem home office minister Norman Baker announced it during the drugs debate in the Commons. The government will amend regulations to make Naloxone - a drug that prevent overdose on heroin - more widely available to prisoners on their release.

Optimistically, Baker claimed:

The debate has now been opened. We can no longer rely on the stonewalling that we have so often had about drugs policy in this country. There are genuine debates to be had about the way forward and I think the genie is out of the bottle and it will not be going back in.

4.44pm GMT16:44

A man who has similar hair to Mario Balotelli caused a bit of unwarranted excitement in the Commons earlier. A Tory MP tweeted that the footballer was watching the debate on drugs from the public gallery. Journalists rushed down there...

Liverpool striker Mario Balotelli has popped in to Commons Gallery to watch the Drug Policy debate -wearing sharp suit, pink shirt &a poppy

MPs think Mario Balotelli is not in the Commons gallery. It's not him, just a man with similar hair. 'I get that all the time,' he says.

4.30pm GMT16:30

Child abuse inquiry chair under fire

More trouble is brewing over the government’s second choice to lead the child abuse inquiry, Fiona Woolf.

It has emerged that she did not write the first draft of the letter detailing her contact with former home secretary Lord Brittan, who was handed a dossier making allegations about Westminster paedophile links that later went missing. The letter, which revealed she was on dinner party terms with Brittan, was also edited seven times.

Keith Vaz, the chairman of the home affairs committee, has said: “The final version gave a sense of greater detachment between Lord and Lady Brittan and Mrs Woolf than her previous attempts.”

Mrs Woolf’s letter to the Committee raises more questions than it answers about an appointment process that has been chaotic, and a series of exchanges with the Home Office and others, where words, and sometimes even facts, have been amended. It is extraordinary that Mrs Woolf did not even write the first draft of her letter which was supposed to detail her own personal experiences. The letter then underwent seven drafts with a multiplicity of editors. The lessons of the Butler-Sloss appointment and resignation have not been learned. There should have been full disclosure of this information before, not after, her appointment.

This is more bad news for Theresa May, the home secretary, after the previous head of the inquiry, Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, had to stand down over her links with the establishment because her brother was attorney general at the time.

Many MPs are frustrated that the Home Office does not seem to have grasped that it does not matter if theories of a continuing establishment cover-up are far-fetched.

The point is that there must be no perception at all of any possible conflict of interest if the chairman is to command the confidence of the public, and especially the victims of child abuse who have repeatedly been let down by the authorities.

Updated at 4.40pm GMT

4.20pm GMT16:20

Cameron says no to decriminalising drugs

David Cameron has made his view clear on the decriminalisation of drugs: it won’t be happening on his watch. Speaking at the Cameron Direct event in Cheshire, he said:

The evidence is, what we are doing is working. I don’t believe in decriminalising drugs that are illegal today”.I’m a parent with three children. I don’t want to send out a message that somehow taking these drugs is OK and safe because, frankly, it isn’t

Updated at 4.22pm GMT

4.11pm GMT16:11

My colleague Severin Carrell has written this about Jim Murphy in the face of the Ipsos MORI poll suggesting Labour could lose a huge number of seats in Scotland (including Murphy’s own):

Jim Murphy, the clear favourite to become the next Scottish Labour leader, has accused his party of lacking passion and vision as a shock poll showed Labour faces being wiped out by the Scottish National party at the general election.

As he confirmed he would contest the leadership, the former Scottish secretary said he wanted the Scottish Labour party to “end its losing streak”, saying: “We’ve lost too many elections north of the border and I want to bring that to an end.”

He’s got a huge job ahead of him if he wins, says Sunder Katwala, of British Future:

has any recent party leader faced as tough a challenge as new Scottish Labour leader: esp has 6 months.(Even Hague 1997,IDS 2001Kinnock1983)

3.54pm GMT15:54

Another key moment came when Lord Mitchell, a former Labour frontbench spokesman in the Lords, backed the actress Maureen Lipman, who has dropped support for the party after five decades because of its policy on recognising Palestine as an independent state.

I certainly support a Palestinian state, but not quite yet. It must be negotiated with both the Palestinians and Israel. And pain me though it does to say this, I agree with Maureen Lipman when she says Labour and Ed Miliband have got it wrong.

3.51pm GMT15:51

Quite an interesting debate about the Middle East has been going on in the House of Lords. Lady Warsi, who resigned as a Foreign Office minister over the government’s policy on Gaza, has made her first speech since standing down. She does not hold back about the government’s Middle East peace policy:

Our policy is simply not working and it is flawed. Different strands of our policy are simply not viable and no longer hold true. We know that our policy is not working - yet we continue to stick to it. Out policy is not responding to the reality on the ground and yet we fail to change it.This approach damages our reputation both at home and abroad - and sadly no longer makes us an honest broker.

On illegal settlements, she said the UK condemns these and argues that they threaten the viability of a two-state solution, but no consequences follow for Israel.

The situation on the ground has so changed and continues to do so that what we say we seek is unlikely to be achieved. We say we have a position: we condemn. But the actions of that condemnation are not there to be seen. No consequences follow. We prefer private to public diplomacy - and I agree with that - but I fail to see those tough private conversations.

Updated at 3.55pm GMT

3.31pm GMT15:31

This is the full Electoral Calculus table for Scotland based on the Ipsos MORI poll, tweeted by Michael Savage at The Times. It suggests Alistair Carmichael would be the only Lib Dem to keep his seat, while Willie Bain, Tom Clarke, Gordon Brown and Ian Davidson would be the only Labour representatives.

The full table from Electoral Calculus, giving indicative seats impact of the Scotland poll: pic.twitter.com/CaAHBZ92K9

3.25pm GMT15:25

Labour has now issued a statement on the drugs debate, which calls for an evidence-based policy but does not give its backing to the Home Office report suggesting their is no link between strict laws and the level of illegal drug use. It also criticises the Lib Dems for “trying to solve a problem that doesn’t exist”.

Diana Johnson, shadow Home Office minister, said:

Labour want an evidence based drugs policy, but that should start with the evidence of what was achieved under a Labour government. In 2010, UK was a world leader in providing good quality drug treatment and reducing drug harm. Over the last four years drug treatment is becoming harder to access and in some areas it is virtually non-existent.

But the Lib Dems are trying to solve a problem that doesn’t exist. Drug possession on its own is rarely the cause of a custodial sentence. We need to be looking at this in the round. The criminal justice system will always have a vital role to play in reducing drug harms, and what we need to looking for is an effective integration of policing, treatment and prevention strategies.”

Updated at 3.25pm GMT

3.20pm GMT15:20

PinkNews have sent this video of Nicky Morgan, the education secretary, defending her u-turn on gay marriage at their award ceremony yesterday in the face of heckling.

3.00pm GMT15:00

Over in the Commons, the motion on drugs reform has passed unanimously but it wasn’t calling for anything particularly tough, just an independent cost-benefit analysis and impact assessment of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971.

Our motion on drugs policy has passed unanimously. Fantastic result! #debatedrugs #fb

What was more interesting was a number of senior Conservatives, not all centrists or liberals, were supportive of drugs law reform. One of them was Crispin Blunt, the former justice minister, who said this about David Cameron:

It is frankly just modestly depressing a bright, young, new MP elected in 2001, appointed to the home affairs select committee, is then party to a report inviting a number of really good reports by the home affairs select committee... and here we are now and when I found myself as one of his ministers in 2010... we sat down and we discussed this issue internally between ministers who had some responsibility in justice and the Home Office, and of course we dare not raise this issue. I pushed as hard as I could for us to at least get to the place... [Norman Baker] and his predecessor for having pushed very hard to get this report which has been published today. It is a big step forward to even get the Government to say what the international comparators are. Joking apart, we all need to understand the political difficulty of carrying the whole debate with us. We have been frightened of the tabloids and what they did to the Liberal Democrat party on some its policies in this area.

Blunt even admitted that, while he was a Tory justice minister, he got a former Labour minister Jim Cunningham to ask a question seeking details about the cost of the current drugs policy and its failures which officials had been refusing to give him.

It is why the recommendation of the home affairs select committee in 2012 to have a royal commission in this area is the right thing to do It gets it out of the political space and means the work in this report on international comparators can be put forward and they can recommend the kind of difficult and far reaching conclusions I think would be appropriate, taking us in the direction of regulation and away from the utterly disastrous policy around prohibition

2.50pm GMT14:50

While Brokenshire was defending the coalition’s migrant rescue stance in the House of Commons, Lord Bates, a home office minister, was in the House of Lords denying that it was a decision by the UK government at all.

The Italian government has taken this decision to phase this out - it is not one that has been taken by the UK government.

2.42pm GMT14:42

In fact, looking more closely at the numbers, it’s more than merely worrying for Labour. It is a major threat to Miliband’s hopes of being prime minister after the next election. Our Scottish editor tweets:

New @STVNews #GE2015 poll gives @theSNP hefty 52% of Scottish vote: enough for 54 #Westminster seats. Wounded @scottishlabour trails at 23%

2.30pm GMT14:30

Shock Scotland poll for Labour

One more quick thing on Scotland - this Ipsos MORI poll is worrying for Labour. The SNP appears to have a commanding lead among those who said they would be certain to vote in an immediate general election.

Mark Diffley, director at Ipsos MORI Scotland said:

The poll gives a further boost to the SNP ahead of their upcoming conference and the formal announcement of Nicola Sturgeon becoming the new first minister. At the same time, it will be particularly unwelcome news for the Labour party after a bruising period since the referendum, culminating in Johan Lamont’s resignation last week. They will hope that this represents a trough in public support and that their upcoming leadership contest will allow them to begin to regain some of the support they have lost.

Updated at 3.38pm GMT

2.20pm GMT14:20

Think the media obsession with Nigel Farage has gone too far? Then you might not want to watch this Channel 4 film imagining what his first 100 days in Downing Street would be like:

Ukip is set to take power in a film imagining Nigel Farage’s first 100 days in Downing Street after winning the General Election in May 2015.

Ahead of polling day, Channel 4 has commissioned a one-off ‘What-If’ drama, with the working title ‘100 Days of Ukip’, exploring the effects of an imagined future in which Ukip actually led the country.

Set in a possible future where Farage’s party has continued its exponential rise to power, the film projects what could actually happen if the Eurosceptics were in charge.

Updated at 2.27pm GMT

2.17pm GMT14:17

I’ll return to migration debate in a minute but first, here’s a quick aside on the Scottish Labour leadership race which feels like it is truly underway now that Jim Murphy has declared. Both he and Neil Findlay have given interviews about their ambitions this lunchtime, with much debate about where to place them on the political spectrum.

This is Jim Murphy on the BBC, being pretty honest about what has been happening in Scotland to Labour:

I am not interested in left-wing Labour, right-wing Labour, Old Labour, New Labour. I am interested in Losing Labour. I want to end that period of losing here in Scotland, starting with the UK general election. I am confident that we can hold all the seats we currently have, and gain one or two on top.

I am confident that I can appeal, not just to Scottish Labour voters, to the trade unions, but to people who are undecided, people who turned away from us in recent elections in Scotland, and build that movement for change. These labels of left and right, I just want to unite the Labour party, and bring Scotland together after the difficulty and passion that we had in the referendum.

And later:

The Labour party hasn’t been passionate enough in recent times. It’s occasionally been divided. I want to end that Scottish party self-harm where we turn in on ourselves. One of the remarkable things Ed Miiband has done is that he has managed to ensure there is a united British Labour party after the election debate.

Similarly, Neil Findlay has denied he is the “left-wing candidate” against Blairite Murphy, telling the BBC’s Daily Politics:

These are terms that the media use to trade people. The issues I’m interested in are the very mainstream issues - the need for more social housing, the need to improve the wages and conditions of working people, the National Health Service and in our public services. Mainstream issues that Scotland is concerned about and these are the issues that have been raised consistently in the referendum.

I think the SNP over the last few years have attempted to steal Labour’s voters and pitch themselves as being the progressive party in Scotland, but actually there is not a lot of substance to that claim. But I don’t want us to have us measure ourselves against the SNP.

Updated at 2.24pm GMT

1.57pm GMT13:57

David Cameron is talking to workers at a call centre in Cheshire this afternoon, but Matthew Holehouse of Telegraph reports that even having a captive audience can’t make them listen

Surreal. Workers at call centre are talking amongst themselves as PM gives address

Incidentally, I usually find the PM gets a pretty easy ride at Cameron Direct events like this because his aides always choose to hold them with staff at a place of work.

This means that instead of asking about low wages and the cost of living in front of the bosses, most employees make polite inquiries about things like how the Tories will cut red tape for businesses or what he will do about EU barriers related to the importing of tractor parts.

Updated at 2.01pm GMT

1.36pm GMT13:36

Interestingly, Lord Ashdown’s condemnation of the government’s migrant rescue policy puts him at odds with his protégé Nick Clegg, the Lib Dem leader and deputy prime minister, who defended it this morning.

This is the full quote from Ashdown, who was the UN’s high representative in Bosnia:

This is a discreditable policy whatever words are used to describe it. We do not find it difficult to disagree with the European Union on all sorts of other matters. Do we have to lay our hand to a European policy whose central proposition is that the best way to discourage people from seeking a better life is to leave them to drown in the Mediterranean? This is inhuman, it is discreditable and it may well be contrary to our duties under international law to do everything we can to save those in peril in the sea.

Updated at 1.37pm GMT

1.08pm GMT13:08

Lunchtime summary

Updated at 5.17pm GMT

12.47pm GMT12:47

A Labour MEP is going to push for an inquiry at the civil liberties, justice and home affairs committee of the European parliament. Claude Moraes, who chairs the committee, said:

Saving lives is not an issue of encouraging or discouraging migration - nor is it a push or pull factor. It is a moral duty to save those in distress at sea. It is a matter of observing the basic norms of maritime law.

Human traffickers will not lose business because we do not assist boats in distress. People take the risk of the perilous journey because there is still hope that they will survive the crossing and it is still the best option they have.

As chair of the European Parliament’s committee responsible for monitoring FRONTEX and the other agencies specifically tasked with border management in the Mediterranean, I will be pushing for an inquiry into the ethics and resources being utilised by Member States in the this region...

It is astonishing that the UK government claim that the rescue operations have been encouraging more migrants to come to Europe especially considering the fact that the top ten countries which receive the most refugees feature not one single European country, but include many developing countries according to the UN.

12.30pm GMT12:30

Maurice Wren, chief executive of the Refugee Council, has rejected the government’s argument that search and rescue operations encourage people to take perilous journeys, calling it “an affront to basic humanity”.

The suggestion that if we allow people to drown at sea it will deter others from fleeing persecution is macabre logic. Future generations will surely look back with shame at the British government’s response to the greatest refugee crisis in generations, as it stands on our island, pulls up the drawbridge and callously leaves desperate people to drown while telling them it’s in their best interests.

12.09pm GMT12:09

Labour MPs have effectively been accusing the government of letting migrants drown to sound tough on immigration in the face of Tory voters switching to Ukip.

Former Labour prime minister Tony Blair has given an interesting interview to Progress, saying it is a bad idea to ape Ukip in the hope of winning back lose voters.

Let’s be clear: We don’t think that Ukip’s right, not on immigration and not on Europe – so the first thing you’ve got to be really careful of doing is … saying things that suggest that they’re kind of justified in their policy because what you’re actually going to do is validate their argument when in fact you don’t believe in it.

James Kirkup, the Telegraph’s executive editor for politics, thinks he’s spot on.

Tony Blair says both Miliband and Cameron validating Ukip's argument by following its agenda. http://t.co/Fuanekj5i2 He's right, too.

*I have replaced James’ tweet with a corrected version

Updated at 2.33pm GMT

12.05pm GMT12:05

Lord Ashdown, the former Liberal Democrat leader and foreign envoy, has made in important intervention on the subject of stopping migrant rescue missions.

Former lib dem leader, Lord Ashdown, says letting migrants drown in the Med is a discreditable policy and contrary to the law of the sea

11.38am GMT11:38

The Labour backbencher who successfully got to ask an urgent question on the issue was Mark Lazarowicz, MP for Edinburgh North and Leith. This is what he said:

You know that many of those seeking to make this journey are fleeing war, poverty and starvation from places like Syria and Libya. They know already about the risks of dying... they are exploited by people-traffickers, as you have accepted. If they are picked up by European neighbours or border control, they know that they are not going to be given free entry to Europe but are quite likely to end up in a detention centre in Italy or be sent back to their country of origin. Surely it is obvious that the refugees and migrants making these journeys are so desperate they will still make these terrible journeys anyway and the idea that search and rescue operations should be discontinued and people left to die in their thousands to discourage others from making the journey is not just cruel and inhumane, but totally without logic.

11.29am GMT11:29

Labour MPs have been reacting like this:

Minister James Brokenshi in House worming out of responsibility for non rescue policy for Mediterranean migrants facing drowning. Shame.

My colleague @marklazarowicz rightly holding UK Govt. to account for disgraceful decision to scrap rescue missions in Med for #refugees

Just put a question to the Immigration Minister in an Urgent Question on Search and Rescue in the Mediterranean. No real response.

Just replied for the Opposition on search and rescue policy for boats carrying migrants and refugees, governed by international maritime law

11.22am GMT11:22

Axing migrant rescue - government response

This is a summary of what Brokenshire said in the debate:

He was backed by most Tory MPs, although Jeremy Lefroy, a member of the Commons international development committee, called for a re-think.

This is a quote from his opening statement:

We have agreed to a request from Frontex, the EU’s border management agency, to deploy a debriefing expert in support of the new Frontex Operation Triton off the southern Italian coast. This operation is not designed to replace Mare Nostrum but will instead patrol close to EU borders. We stand ready to consider any further request for UK support for the new Frontex operation...Those [search and rescue] matters are matters for member states individually in respect of their territorial waters and therefore it is ultimately a decision for Italy as to how it conducts its search and rescue matters. In respect of the Frontex operation that I have outlined, that is providing surveillance capability and other support in respect of the border. But I find it inconceivable to suggest, and indeed the head of Frontex has said this, that if a boat were in peril that support would not be provided in those circumstances and that obviously rescue would be undertaken

Updated at 11.32am GMT

11.19am GMT11:19

Ian Lucas, a Labour MP, points out that the government has supported air strikes in Syria. He says there is a “moral obligation” to help people fleeing war zones where the UK is involved.

Updated at 11.22am GMT

11.15am GMT11:15

Home Office minister tells MPs operations to rescue drowning migrant in the Med "need to end at the earliest opportunity"

11.14am GMT11:14

Barry Gardiner, a Labour shadow minister, accuses Brokenshire of sophistry. He says there must be more action to stop people leaving north Africa before the rescue missions are stopped. He says:

Why is it the minister is taking the safety net away while people are still falling out of the burning building?

11.13am GMT11:13

David Jones, the Tory former welsh secretary, says the root cause of the problem is the people traffickers. The best thing to do would be an information campaign in north Africa, he says.

Many Labour MPs have been making the point that you can do education work in north Africa as well as rescuing migrants from drowning.

11.11am GMT11:11

Brokenshire has just dodged a question on whether he can estimate how many lives would be saved by withdrawing the search and rescue missions.

Margot James, a Tory MP and parliamentary aide to William Hague, sounded like she was about to criticise the government but stopped short:

The wars in the Middle East are so dire that Europe is unlikely to be able to impact on the push factors in the near term... Europe needs to face up to its responsibilities more than they are doing to date.

11.07am GMT11:07

Sheila Gilmore, a Labour MP, calls for more evidence that this will stop deaths before the rescue efforts are axed.

11.07am GMT11:07

This is what one SNP MP had to say:

Said to the minister that this monstrous race to the bottom with UKIP on immigration is now leaving people to drown in the Mediterranean

11.05am GMT11:05

Tory rightwinger David Nuttall argues that it would help reduce the “pull-factor” if the government made it a specific criminal offence to enter the UK illegally.

11.03am GMT11:03

Brokenshire is keeping his calm in the face of some very angry MPs on the Labour benches.

Jeremy Lefroy, a Tory backbencher, is a voice of dissent among the Conservatives. He asks the government to think again. The rescue efforts should not be withdrawn before better help is in place for migrants in north Africa trying to flee to Europe, he says.

11.01am GMT11:01

But David Winnick, the veteran Labour backbencher, says this policy can be summed up in three words: “Let them drown.”

11.01am GMT11:01

Sir Tony Baldry, a church commissioner and Tory backbencher, supports the government. He stresses it was a unanimous decision by EU member states.

It was never the intention of the UN convention on refugees that if anyone was trafficked from a third country into Europe that they would automatically be given indefinite leave to remain.

10.58am GMT10:58

Diane Abbott, the Labour backbencher, is up in the Commons and sounding furious.

She compares the decision to the British navy forcing the Exodus ship carrying Jews who were trying to escape the holocaust to go back to Europe. She says the UK “will look back in shame” at both situations.

Brokenshire says he respects Abbott’s passion but the harsh reality is that more people are dying in the Mediterranean following the introduction of search and rescue efforts.

10.54am GMT10:54

Sir Richard Ottaway, the former chairman of the foreign affairs select committee, has given the government his support.

Brokenshire confirms there will still be Italian-led rescue efforts within 50 miles of the coast.

10.52am GMT10:52

Keith Vaz, the Labour chairman of the home affairs committee, says it will be an unintended consequences that more people will drown in the Mediterranean, even though he understands why governments do not want to give succour to traffickers.

He says the best thing to do is trying to stop people leaving north Africa in the first place.

Vaz said the mayor of Calais, Natacha Bouchart, told his committee that many of these migrants end up trying to get into the UK from her town in France.

Updated at 10.53am GMT

10.51am GMT10:51

Sarah Teather, the Lib Dem former children’s minister, has accused the government of washing its hands of drowning refugees “Pontius Pilate-style”.

She said it was “absurd and deeply unethical” for the government to claim that people fleeing war zones will be discouraged from taking the risk.

10.50am GMT10:50

Brokenshire insists that the decision to change the policy is not about short term concerns about immigration but a wider strategic stance aimed at saving lives.

10.48am GMT10:48

Brokenshire has accused Labour of “politicising the issue”. He claims all the EU member states have agreed the current course of action.

He denies the UK government will be responsible for deaths, blaming this on the traffickers who take migrants on boats through dangerous waters.

10.47am GMT10:47

Johnson demands to know whether the UK will provide just one immigration officer as its contribution to dealing with the problem of 150,000 people who need rescuing from the Med each year

She says is is a legal obligation to save people at risk on the seas.

10.45am GMT10:45

Diana Johnson, a shadow Home Office minister, says the government is just trying to appear tough on immigration ahead of the Rochester byelection with terrible consequences. She says there is no evidence at all that this will work to reduce people getting on dangerous boats.

Instead of trying to reduce this appalling loss of life, the government is going to let it increase... This is a barbaric abandonment of British values.

10.43am GMT10:43

Brokenshire insists the government’s change in position is saving lives, rather than costing them.

10.42am GMT10:42

Philip Davies, the right-wing Tory backbencher, says the rescue efforts are encouraging people to “try their luck” to get into Europe illegally

10.39am GMT10:39

James Brokenshire, a Home Office minister, is defending the government’s position on stopping the UK’s efforts to rescue migrants in the Mediterranean.

Brokenshire says it is in no one’s interest to encourage more and more people to make the dangerous crossing. He stressed the end of rescue operations would have to be widely publicised to prevent more loss of life.

10.27am GMT10:27

Whenever drugs policy is in the news, it’s always fun to remind people of what David Cameron used to think (or say he thought). This is from the Independent in 2005:

David Cameron, the Tory leadership contender, believes the UN should consider legalising drugs and wants hard-core addicts to be provided with legal “shooting galleries” and state-prescribed heroin.

He also supported calls for ecstasy to be downgraded from the class-A status it shares with cocaine and heroin and said it would be “disappointing” if radical options on the law on cannabis were not looked at.

While I was rifling through the archives, I also came across Cameron’s leadership acceptance speech from the same year, in which he did not mention immigration once as a problem facing Britain. Nothing on Europe in there either.

Updated at 10.28am GMT

10.16am GMT10:16

The case for drugs reform is made by Green MP Caroline Lucas in our pages today ahead of her debate in the Commons on the issue. This is an extract:

On 20 July 2013, Martha Fernback swallowed half a gram of MDMA powder and died. She was 15 years old. Martha should be celebrating her 17th birthday today. She isn’t because the current drug laws failed to protect her. Because prohibition hasn’t stopped risk taking, but it has made those risks worse.

On Martha’s birthday her mother, Anne-Marie Cockburn, will be in parliament to listen to MPs debating whether or not the terms of the Misuse of Drugs Act should be based on an assessment of the best possible evidence.

In her incredibly moving blog, What Martha Did Next, Anne-Marie argues that we are not currently taking an evidence-based approach – that under prohibition it’s impossible to fully educate people like Martha because there is no way to tell what substances contain. It’s a powerful point and one I’ll be making when I lead the parliamentary debate, which is happening in response to almost 135,000 people signing a petition calling for a rethink of our drug laws.

Updated at 10.17am GMT

10.10am GMT10:10

Aside from the drugs row, here’s a quick round-up of all the other political stories of the day:

9.58am GMT09:58

Conveniently for the Lib Dems, drugs policy will be discussed in the House of Commons today. The backbench debate was brought about after a petition of more than 100,000 members of the public and it is due to start at approximately 12.10pm.

Norman Baker, the Lib Dem minister in charge of drugs policy, will be responding for the government. He may have to tread carefully in what he says, as some of his criticisms of the Conservatives’ resistance to reform have been said in the context of his job as a Lib Dem MP this morning. Those proposing the motion are Green MP Caroline Lucas, Lib Dem MP Dr Julian Huppert, and Labour MP Bob Ainsworth

This is the text of the motion:

That this House notes that drug-related harms and the costs to society remain high; further notes that the independent UK Drugs Policy Commission highlighted the fact that Government is spending around £3 billion a year on policies that are often counter-productive; believes that an evidence-based approach is required in order for Parliament and the Government to pursue the most effective drugs policy in the future; welcomes the recommendation of the Home Affairs Select Committee in its Ninth Report of 2012-13, HC 184, that the Government consider all the alternatives to the UK’s failing drug laws and learn from countries that have adopted a more evidence-based approach; notes that the Government has responded positively to this recommendation and is in the process of conducting an international comparators study to consider the effectiveness of national drug policies adopted by a range of countries; and calls on the Government to conduct an authoritative and independent cost-benefit analysis and impact assessment of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 and to publish the results of those studies within the next 12 months.

9.45am GMT09:45

I have an updated the schedule below as there will be an urgent question later this morning about the end of search and rescue operations for migrants in the Mediterranean to be asked by Labour MP Mark Lazarowicz

9.39am GMT09:39

Call Clegg

Updated at 11.35am GMT

9.33am GMT09:33

On the subject of the poll showing the Greens have overtaken the Lib Dems, Clegg sounds relaxed:

We clearly have suffered in the polls, that’s obvious... Do I think we are going to do a whole lot better? ... I strongly suspect we will have a whole lot more MPs [than the Greens or Ukip] in the next parliament.

He also claimed to be the Arsene Wenger of British politics, suggesting Arsenal will rise up the table just as Lib Dems will rise up the polls....

Updated at 9.38am GMT

9.30am GMT09:30

Clegg is now talking about child abuse and Ann Coffey’s report suggesting hundreds of children in care have gone missing. He says the “enormity and the scale of the tragedy” keeps on growing but it is not the fault of politicians that they did not know about it.

People have to be held to account for what happened in the past and things must be set right now, he added.

9.29am GMT09:29

Asked about comments by Michael Wilshaw, the Ofsted chief inspector, suggesting some schools are struggling with an influx of migrants, Clegg says the government has been giving more money to schools to help with children who need it and if there is pressure on places, they need the proper resources.

9.26am GMT09:26

Clegg is repeating his position on recall, saying Zac Goldsmith’s position of allowing the electorate to decide when an MP should be sacked is “rich man’s recall” that could leave it open to abuse by vested interests.

9.25am GMT09:25

Clegg blames the Italians for the winding down of search and rescue methods for drowning migrants in the Mediterranean.

It was a decision taken by the Italian government. They decided they didn’t want to continue with search and rescue... The first thing to say is that we must play our part as a country to make sure people want to stay put and not illegally try and move great distances to another country.It’s not for us to second guess the Italian government’s stance. Were being led by what the Italians tell us.

He says the organised search and rescue patrols were not helping and would be “very odd” for Britain to override the European-wide decision.

9.23am GMT09:23

Clegg is now asked about security for senior politicians after a jogger ran into David Cameron as he left an event in Leeds.

The deputy prime minister said the security team is very good and the culture here is that they don’t “go overboard” like in the US. He feels like they strike the right balance.

9.16am GMT09:16

The questioning moves on the £1.7bn EU “bombshell bill”. Has David Cameron made a dog’s dinner of it all, asks the caller?

Nick Clegg defends the prime minister and echoes his position: “We’re not going to pay this money by December 1.”

He said it is a “completely arbitrary, random way to behave” by the European Commission and points out he will speak to the French prime minister today about it.

9.11am GMT09:11

Clegg has now laid into the Conservatives, saying they have a “totally outdated, misplaced backward looking view” that the public will not accept drugs reform.

However, he denies it is a “row”, saying it is a “staunch difference of opinion”.

Updated at 9.14am GMT

9.10am GMT09:10

Clegg is being challenged by Nick Ferrari over whether people would be happy to see the state fund someone’s methadone when others are fighting to get cancer drugs.

The deputy prime minister says:

It is monumentally expensive to chuck people behind bars for a few months [for drugs offences], only to see them come out and get more addicted to harder drugs.

9.08am GMT09:08

Clegg says he hopes today’s report on drugs is a “wake-up call for David Cameron and Ed Miliband”.

He is not not clear whether addicts should be given surrogate drugs or helped to go cold-turkey by health professionals. The deputy prime minister defers to the experts.

Regardless, he says, we can’t have 2,000 people dying from drugs every year.

9.06am GMT09:06

Nick Clegg gets a soft first question on drugs from the first LBC caller, asking him to set out his views. He says the war on drugs is not working and “we have to get away from the facile view that talking tough” sorts the problem,

He says the report was published after “lots of foot-dragging” from the Conservatives and he is not going to hide his frustration with his coalition partners.

If you are anti-drugs, you should be pro-reform, Clegg says.

I do not support a free-for-all. I want to see more criminalisation of the pushers. I want to see more pushers behind bars but I want to see help for addicts.

Updated at 9.08am GMT

8.58am GMT08:58

Coalition drugs row

Norman Baker, a Lib Dem and the Home Office minister in charge of drugs policy, has been all over the airwaves this morning promoting the report. However, Downing Street sources argue it provides “no support whatsoever for the Lib Dems’ policy of decriminalisation”. Baker has already hit back, pointing out that it was signed off by both himself and Theresa May, the Conservative home secretary. He told Sky News:

Nothing in the report says about letting drug dealers off scot-free and it’s not Lib Dem policy anyway to let drug dealers off scot-free. I’ve just indicated to you that we want to get harder on drug dealers.

So I fear this is Number 10 back-pedalling because they’ve got inconvenient facts. The facts are we’ve had an independent study conducted by civil servants and some of my Conservative colleagues apparently don’t like the evidence that’s come out. But if you look at a tree, it’s a tree.

He later told the Today programme:

The reality is this report has been sitting around for several months. I’ve been trying to get it out and I’m afraid I believe that my coalition colleagues who commissioned the report jointly don’t like the independent conclusions it’s reached... It was suppressed, not by Theresa May, but it was suppressed by the Conservatives. And the reality is it’s got some inconvenient truths in it.

I’m sure Nick Clegg will have something to say on the matter on his LBC 97.3 radio show now.

Updated at 11.55am GMT

8.53am GMT08:53

Morning everyone. This is Rowena Mason, standing in for Andrew Sparrow on the Politics Live blog on Thursday, 30 October. We’ll have a readers’ edition tomorrow and normal service from Andrew will resume next week.

Drugs policy is top of the news this morning, with the Lib Dems and Tories trading blows over a report from the Home Office.

The official government study found that treating drug possession as a health problem rather than a criminal matter has no impact on levels of substance misuse.

On the agenda, we have:

9am: Call Clegg

9.30am: Questions to the environment secretary, Liz Truss

Urgent Question: Search and rescue operations for refugees and migrants in the Mediterranean - Mark Lazarowicz

Backbench business debate on drugs policy in the House of Commons

1.30pm: Debate on the first joint report from the Committees on Arms Export Controls, Scrutiny of Arms Exports and Arms Controls and the government’s response.

All day: National Children and Adult Services conference, including speeches by Nicky Morgan, Eric Pickles and Jeremy Hunt.

Updated at 9.42am GMT