Westminster attack: PC Keith Palmer named as police officer killed – as it happened

There will be an urgent question after PMQs about the new restrictions on taking laptops into the cabin on some flights.

YouGov has published its latest opinion poll. It suggests the Tories have a 16-point lead over Labour.

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And it suggests Theresa May (47%) has a 33-point lead over Jeremy Corbyn (14%) on who would make the best prime minister, although May is not that far ahead of the don’t knows (39%).

Teachers have voted to merge two unions to form a new super union for education workers, the Press Association reports. Members of the National Union of Teachers and the Association of Teachers and Lecturers backed the link up by more than 2-1.

The National Education Union will be formed later in the year, representing 450,000 teachers and other education workers. It will be the biggest union in Europe for teachers and education professionals and the fourth biggest union in the UK.

Given that Ken Livingstone has a theory on how Jeremy Corbyn can improve relations with the parliamentary Labour party (see 10.05am), perhaps he should apply for a new job that has been advertised on the w4mp website - Labour party “political liaison officer”.

The successful candidate will have to “help support and develop the relationship” between, among others, Corbyn and Labour MPs.

For a sense of how difficult a task this could be, do read Paul Waugh’s account of Monday’s extraordinary PLP meeting for Huffington Post.

The person appointed will get a salary of £40,000. And they will be on a fixed-term contract “for the period only that Corbyn is the leader of the Labour party”.

If you’re still interested, you can find out more, including application details, here. And if you do get the job, good luck. You may need it.

According to a story by Francis Elliott and Sam Coates in the Times (paywall), the plans for a new post-Brexit immigration law being drawn up by the government would involve penalties for employers and landlords who take on people without permission to live and work in the UK.

Here’s an extract.

Businesses have been reassured that they will not face a “cliff edge”, with any changes brought in gradually and allowances made for low-skilled migration such as seasonal agricultural work.

The leading options include work permits and a five-year working visa with strict curbs on benefit entitlements. Ministers privately admit, however, that businesses and private landlords will be made to shoulder much of the burden of policing the system, whatever is eventually introduced.

“We will be making landlords and employers do a lot of the heavy lifting on the enforcement. That’s the direction of travel,” a senior minister involved in drawing up the system said.

Landlords already face a maximum five year jail term for knowingly letting to illegals under the legislation that came into effect last year. That could increase as part of efforts to make them shoulder the burden of a new migration system.

The Labour MP Wes Streeting has responded to Ken Livingstone, PoliticsHome’s Kevin Schofield reports.

Ken Livingstone, the former Labour mayor of London and veteran leftwinger, has been speaking to Radio 5 Live’s Emma Barnett this morning. There were two news lines.

• Livingstone urged Jeremy Corbyn to suspend around a dozen Labour MPs most critical of his leadership. He said:

Those that have been most over the top I think should be suspended. I think the other thing that Jeremy should do is re-introduce automatic re-selection. It’s really ridiculous that MPs in safe seats have a job for life ...

I’m particularly talking about Chuka Umunna, Wes Streeting - basically it’s the same group of MPs who were screaming that I’d said Hitler was a Zionist and I was anti-semitic. The moment that issue went on hold, they were then blaming Jeremy for Britain voting to leave. Just endless criticism. It’s only about a dozen of them.

The simple fact is they are consciously undermining Jeremy and damaging the Labour party.

• He said that he would take Labour to judicial review if it refused to readmit him following his suspension for remarks about Hitler and zionism last year. A disciplinary hearing is due to take place shortly. Livingstone said he expected to lose that hearing, but that he thought he would win in the courts.

I’m afraid we’ll have to be off to a judicial review in the courts and in the court the issue will be, what was actually said and what is the truth, and the Labour party has got no chance of winning a judicial review.

I’m basically retired. I’m not seeking office. I haven’t asked Jeremy or didn’t ask Ed Miliband to send me to the House of Lords or anything like that. I’m a house husband, but I’m not having my political career defined at the end that I’m anti-semitic.

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This is what the government has said in response to the Lords committee report warning that leaving the EU without a trade deal would cause “significant damage” to the services sector. (See 9.11am.) A spokesman said:

The prime minister has been clear that we will pursue a bold and ambitious free trade agreement with the European Union as a priority - it should allow for the freest possible trade in services, as well as goods, between Britain and the EU.

On top of that, we believe a phased process of implementation will be in our mutual self interest - allowing UK and EU institutions, member states and businesses to prepare for the new arrangements. The nature of any interim arrangements will be a matter for negotiation.

Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, is in Washington today for the conference about countering Islamic State (Isis). He is due to be meeting senior US officials including secretary of state Rex Tillerson, and as he arrived last night he tweeted a picture of himself with the US national security adviser, HR McMaster.

The Tory MP Julian Knight won’t be happy. He organised the letter signed by 76 mostly pro-leave MP complaining about the BBC giving too much prominence to reports conveying a negative impression of Brexit. Thankfully the duty Today editor isn’t taking much notice because this morning the programme gave a prominent slot to Lord Whitty, chair of the Lords EU internal market sub-committee, which has today published a report saying the businesses in the service sector would face “significant damage” if the UK left the EU without a trade deal. The government wants a trade deal but, as the Guardian reports, some cabinet ministers are saying they are relaxed about crashing out of the EU without a trade deal and instead having to rely on World Trade Organisations terms to trade with the EU.

This is what Whitty said in a statement explaining why this is so important.

The UK is the second largest exporter of services in the world and the EU receives 39% of the UK’s non-financial service exports. This trade is critical to the UK’s economy as it creates employment and supports goods exports - we can’t afford to lose that.

To protect the UK’s status as a global leader of trade in services, the government will need to secure the most comprehensive FTA that has ever been agreed with the EU. Walking away from negotiations without a deal would badly damage UK plc, particularly in sectors such as aviation and broadcasting which have no WTO rules to fall back on.

And here’s an extract from the report explaining this case in more detail.

Trade in services is inherently different from, and in many ways more complex than, trade in goods. Services are intangible and can be traded either online, in person, via a subsidiary business located in another territory or (increasingly) embedded within manufactured goods ...

Unlike trade in goods, trade in services is largely unaffected by tariffs, but instead can be restricted by non-tariff barriers. Such barriers may not only increase the cost of trade but can also prohibit trade altogether. For example, without the right qualifications or licence, some UK service providers may not be able to deliver a service abroad ...

A ‘no deal’ scenario, or a deal which gave no special consideration to UK trade in non-financial services, would risk significant damage to these sectors. For instance, WTO rules do not provide for trade with the EU in aviation or broadcasting services at all. Instead, UK firms would have to rely on outdated and restrictive agreements. While the UK’s global standing in services may mitigate some negative consequences, faced with a ‘no deal’ scenario, businesses could be forced either to re-structure or relocate in order to continue to operate in the way that they do today. Moreover, WTO rules would also not sufficiently facilitate the cross-border movement of persons that supports the UK’s trade in services with the EU, nor would they ensure the free flow of data. Rules on market access also differ between EU member states—increasing the regulatory complexity for UK firms.

We are likely to hear more about this this afternoon, when David Davis, the Brexit secretary, gives evidence to the Lords EU committee.

Here is the agenda for the day.

10am: Nick Hurd, the business minister, gives a speech on industrial strategy to the Localis thinktank.

10.30am: Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, the lord chief justice, gives evidence to the Lords constitution committee.

12pm: Theresa May faces Jeremy Corbyn at PMQs.

12.30pm: Tim Farron, the Lib Dem leader, proposes a 10-minute rule bill calling for a referendum on the final Brexit deal.

Around 2.30pm: MSPs resume their debate on the SNP’s call for a second independence referendum. They will vote at 5.30pm.

4pm: David Davis, the Brexit secretary, gives evidence to the Lords EU committee.

As usual, I will be covering breaking political news as it happens, as well as bringing you the best reaction, comment and analysis from the web. I plan to post a summary after PMQs and another in the afternoon.

You can read all today’s Guardian politics stories here.

If you want to follow me or contact me on Twitter, I’m on @AndrewSparrow.

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