David Davis questioned by MPs over Brexit - Politics live

• David Davis, the Brexit secretary, has told MPs that it is unlikely the UK will be just reliant on WTO rules to govern trade with the EU when it leaves. (See 3.25pm.) He has also said there is no need for parliament to be given a say in the decision to trigger article 50, starting the EU withdrawal process, because when ministers initiate this using prerogative powers, they will be acting with a mandate from the referendum.

• Ken Clarke has written to constituents who have contacted him with concerns about Britain’s vote to leave the European Union to reassure them: “The referendum is not binding.”

• Nick Clegg, the former Lib Dem leader and former deputy prime minister, has told a press gallery lunch he expects Liam Fox, the international trade secretary, to resign within the next 18 months. He said:

I do feel sorry for Liam in particular. I’m not a betting man, but if I was I would put a fair amount of money that Liam Fox will resign in a huff within the next 18 months.

He doesn’t have a job and he doesn’t appear to have realised that yet. If the United Kingdom doesn’t leave the customs union, which apparently is still an open question in Whitehall, then he is heading a department without purpose because he cannot negotiate all these fantastic trade deals with Papua New Guinea and Tanzania and China and India and Australia.

There’s only 15% of British trade goes to countries which are outside the European Union or with which we don’t have a European trade deal or in the process of having a European trade deal. So this idea that there is these Elysian Fields of unbridled 19th century trade waiting for us, where apparently everyone will give us exactly what we want even though we’ll be a fraction of the size of what we were when we were negotiating partners of the EU, it’s a nonsense.

• The chances of EU citizens settled in Britain retaining all their rights to live, work and retire in the UK after Brexit have been rated as zero by legal experts. As Lisa O’Carroll reports, a leading barrister who specialises in international public law told a House of Lords panel on Tuesday it was “inconceivable” that the laws would survive entirely intact.Prof Alan Vaughan Lowe QC said this was the price millions of people – including 1.3 million Britons abroad and 3 million non-Britons living in the UK – were likely to pay for Brexit.Such was the uncertainty surrounding negotiations and the demands of other EU states, he said, that the British government might have to consider compensation for British citizens abroad if some rights, such as access to Spanish or French healthcare, were lost.

• Jeremy Corbyn has announced plans for “a strategy aimed at making Labour’s mass membership a dynamic organising and campaigning presence in every corner of Britain, in order to empower communities and win the next general election”. It will involve setting up an “Organising Innovation Taskforce” and the establishment of Labour Organising Academies.

• Domestic policies, rather than globalisation, are to blame for the stagnating incomes of Britain’s middles classes, a new report claims.

• The watchdog set up to regulate press standards has been branded “toothless” by MPs concerned it has never fined a newspaper.

• Dick Newby has been elected Lib Dem leader in the Lords, replacing Jim Wallace who is stepping down.

That’s all from me for today.

Thanks for the comments.

Crispin Blunt asks about Guy Verhofstadt’s comments about the UK having to allow free movement of EU citizens if it wants access to the single market. (See 1.48pm.) He says he thinks this is not new.

Davis says the language about the single market gets very confused. People muddle access to the single market with membership of it.

He says the government will seek to acquire the best trading capacity for Britain. That could mean either access or membership, he says.

Crispin Blunt says his committee thinks the Foreign Office budget will have to double or treble after Brexit, because promoting the UK in the world will become much more important when it is outside the EU.

• Foreign Office budget will need to double or treble after Brexit, says foreign affairs committee chair.

Davis says the cabinet committee on Brexit has met at least twice. But that was during August. He expects it to meet at least once a month.

And minister talk to each other about Brexit on other occasions, he says.

Daniel Kawczynski, a Conservative, goes next.

Q: I engage with the Polish community. There have been some anti-Polish incidents, but I am concerned the media may be overplaying them. What can you say in reassurance?

Davis says hate crimes like this are unacceptable and will always be treated firmly.

Labour’s Ann Clwyd goes next.

Q: Why did you abandon the promise to give £350m a week to the NHS when we leave the EU?

Davis says he made no such pledge. She needs to ask the people who did say that.

(Davis was not associated with Vote Leave, which made that promise. He was linked instead with the rival group, Grassroots Out.)

• Davis does not try to defend Vote Leave’s promise about Brexit raising £350m per week for the NHS.

This is from the FT’s Jim Pickard.

And this is from the Tory committee member Nadhim Zahawi.

Blunt asks what the government will do to ensure parliament is kept informed. The European parliament will be kept informed, and in some cases MEPs will be given information on a confidential basis. Will that go to parliament too?

Davis says the government will not give away its negotiating position. But he will ensure that select committee chairs getting the information going to MEPs in confidence.

Crispin Blunt asks Davis to send the committee a copy of the reply the government will be sending to the memo from the Japanese government setting out Japan’s Brexit demands (pdf).

Labour’s Mark Hendrick goes next.

Q: Do you envisage a bespoke agreement for the UK? Will it be brought out of a hat like a rabbit at the end of this process?

Davis says the government will act in the national interest.

Q: The Japanese have said what Japanese businesses fear is a situation where they cannot say what way the negotiations are going. That is true of companies around the world.

Davis says Hendrick should go back to what the Japanese ambassador said on the Today programme on the first day of the G20.

Q: What about going back to blue, British passports - not these “pink” EU things?

Davis says he is not in the business of symbolism. He is in the business of delivery.

Andrew Rosindell, a Conservative, goes next.

Q: Some people are worried the government will not leave. What actions can you take, even small actions, to reassure people?

Davis says his department has been set up. The decision has been taken by the people, and the government will deliver it.

The PM has said time and time again there will be no second referendum and no reversal, he says.

Q: Could we look at Efta as a transitional option? We could leave the EU earlier, and go into Efta.

Davis says he does not see that as an option.

The government’s plan is to leave the EU at the end of the process.

Until then, the government will obey EU law and “be a good EU citizen”.

At the end “we will be a good global citizen”, he goes on.

Crispin Blunt goes next.

Q: The talk of “grey hair” is a bit worrying. Have you found it difficult getting experienced staff.

No, says Davis. He says only today a senior law firm offered to second three partners to the department.

Daniel Kawczynski, a Conservative, goes next.

Q: Why is it taking so long to trigger article 50?

Davis says that the government has to do the analysis first. This is time consuming.

For example, look at the “passporting” issue that allows the City to trade in the EU. Some sectors are heavily affected; others aren’t.

Q: Do you have sufficient resources?

Davis says that is not the problem. But it has taken time to set up a department.

His staff are young, smart people. But they may not have experience in the City or in industry. In the next phase he wants to bring in people “with grey hair”, he says.

Q: When do you think other EU leaders will complain about the amount of time the UK is taking to trigger article 50?

Some people are saying that already, Davis says.

But they are the other side of the negotiation.

And they need time too, he says.

He says Michel Barnier, the European commission official in charge of Brexit, is setting up his own unit too. He has 25 people working for him, Davis says.

Labour’s Mike Gapes goes next.

Q: You said Brexit should not be used to undermine workers’ rights. Is that your personal view, or the government’s view?

Davis says he was giving his personal view. But he has no reason to think the government would do something different.

He says in a negotiation it is a mistake to identify red lines. If you do that, your opponent goes straight for the red lines, he says.

UPDATE: This is from Gapes.

Here is Vote Leave Watch, a campaign intended to hold the Brexit campaign to account, on Davis’s comments about the WTO. (See 3.25pm.)

Davis says it is a bad idea to go into a negotiating fearing any of the outcomes.

He says:

I see nothing to fear in any of them [the potential outcomes].

• Davis says he sees “nothing to fear” in any of the possible Brexit negotiation outcomes.

For example, people cite the costs of various options, he says. But they do not look at what could be done to mitigate those costs.

As an example of the preparatory work going on, Davis says his department is doing an assessment of the cost of non-tariff barriers. But it won’t necessarily publish this information. That would be “a gift to the other side”, he says.

Davis says his department has about 200 people in it. He is taking a small number of very high calibre civil servants from departments. But he is not trying to duplicate the work department do.