Mandelson appointment: SNP MP compares Starmer to 'deal with the devil' as Commons debates ambassador role

The latest episode of Today in Focus is out. It features Lucy Hough and Kiran Stacey talking about today's Mandelson developments. That is all from me for today. In the Commons, Alex Burghart is now winding for the Tories. Then Darren Jones, the chief secretary to the PM, will wind up for the government before the vote. Nadeem Badshah will be covering that, and all the reaction.

Back in the Commons, the SNP MP Dave Doogan started his speech with a colourful simile about quite what a liability was.

"If one is in public office, having anything to do with Lord Mandelson is akin to filling the world's smallest hot-water bottle with the world's largest kettle dressed only in your shorts and your flip-flops. The question isn't whether you will get burned, the question is how badly you'll get burned and potentially how fatally one can get burned having anything to do with Peter Mandelson."

Doogan said that, although Starmer has described the appointment of Mandelson as a mistake, that was not correct.

"One of the falsehoods that the prime minister has sought repeatedly to advance is that this was a mistake. It was a mistake to appoint Peter Mandelson. It was no such thing. It was a debt to be repaid. He had to appoint Peter Mandelson to that job. It was a deal he made with the devil."

Doogan was referring to claims that Mandelson was crucial in helping to get Starmer elected as PM. In his evidence this morning to the foreign affairs committee, Morgan McSweeney addressed this in part, and suggested Mandelson was not as influential as some people claim. He ended his speech by saying that Mandelson should never have been appointed.

"When [Starmer] stands there and he says sorry to the victims of Epstein, what he should continue to say is 'When I appointed him to the pinnacle of diplomatic appointments within the United Kingdom over in Washington, I appointed him in the knowledge that he was a sympathiser and close friend and confidant of the world's most prolific paedophile, and I still appointed him. I just didn't know how much of a friend and a confidant he was of the world's most prolific paedophile.' That is no defence."

In the Commons the Conservative MP Christopher Chope said that, if the privileges committee did investigate the claims about Keir Starmer, "even if some of the allegations were proved to be true, in my view, the penalty would not be that severe." He recalled Margaret Thatcher supporting him during the 1997 election campaign and doing a visit after Neil Hamilton was found to have broken Commons rules. Asked about the Hamilton scandal, Thatcher's response was just to say: "Nobody's perfect." He also said that, while his constituents did want to see the government replaced, they did not want to see Starmer resign, because they were worried about his replacement being worse.

Peers drop opposition to schools bill after ministers promise 'age or functionality restrictions' on social media for under-16s

Peers have ended their stand-off with MPs over plans to curb social media for under-16s after the government agreed to introduce "age or functionality restrictions", the Press Association reports.

"The two chambers of the House of Commons had been locked in a fight over the children's wellbeing and schools bill regarding the content under-16s are exposed to online. Peers stood down this afternoon after ministers announced they would impose social media restrictions for young people regardless of the outcome of a consultation which is currently under way.

Pressure in the House of Lords had been led by Tory former education minister and academy chain founder Lord Nash, who accepted the government's concession. Lord Nash told the upper chamber: "[I] thank the government for their active engagement in the matter of social media, albeit rather last minute, and for making a binding commitment to impose some form of age or functionality restrictions for children under 16, and to be focused on addictive features, harmful, algorithmic driven content and features such as stranger pairing that we know can be most damaging to children's safety."