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Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Jeremy Hunt Commons vote and PMQs: Politics live blog

Rolling coverage of all today's political developments as they happen, including PMQs and the Commons debate on Jeremy Hunt

9.19am: Here's some Twitter comment on today's vote.

From Tory MP Gavin Barwell

From the Guardian's Patrick Wintour

From the BBC's Norman Smith

From PoliticsHome's Paul Waugh

From Alex Belardinelli, an aide to Ed Balls

9.15am: Stress testing is normally associated with banks, but today the coalition is going to experience some stress testing of its own when the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats split in a vote on whether there should be an investigation into whether Jeremy Hunt broke the ministerial code. As Patrick Wintour reports in the Guardian, today's debate will mark one of the most serious breaches of coalition unity since 2010. There's no chance that the Labour motion, calling for Hunt to be investigated by the prime minister's independent adviser on ministers' interests, will get passed. But, at this stage, it is not clear quite how much damage the Lib Dems will do to coalition unity by refusing to vote to defend Hunt? Will it be seen as a polite "agreement to differ"? Or will it be remembered as an act of treachery that will hasten the moment when the coaliton collapses?

In public comments this morning both sides have been seeking to play down the significance of the split. Grant Shapps, the Conservative housing minister, told the Today programme that the Lib Dem position was just a "reminder that we have different perspectives on things".

It's a reminder that this is two parties that have come together in the national interest to sort out these huge debt problems ... The important thing is that we continue to focus on the big picture, on avoiding getting into the situation of Spain or Greece.

And Don Foster, a Lib Dem backbencher, told the same programme that the debate did not matter much anyway because David Cameron had decided not to have an inquiry into Hunt.


It's not going to make a blind bit of difference, the prime minister's already made his mind up on the issue ... The best way Nick Clegg can make clear what he believes about this is to do what he has already done. He doesn't endorse the position the prime minister's made not to refer this to the independent adviser, it's as simple as that.

But is it really as good tempered as this? I'll be covering the debate in detail, and I'll be particularly interested in what Tory MPs have to say about the stance of their Lib Dem colleagues.

Here's the full agenda for the day.

9.30am: Tim Loughton, the children's minister, unveils plans to enshrine in law the rights of both divorced fathers and mothers to see their children.

10am: Nick Clegg gives evidence to the Leveson inquiry. In the afternoon Alex Salmond will give evidence.

12pm: David Cameron and Nick Clegg clash at PMQs.

12.30pm: The Jeremy Hunt debate begins. It should go on until about 4pm.

As usual, I'll be covering all the breaking political news, as well as looking at the papers and bringing you the best politics from the web. I'll post a summary before PMQs and another in the afternoon.

If you want to follow me on Twitter, I'm on @AndrewSparrow.

And if you're a hardcore fan, you can follow @gdnpoliticslive. It's an automated feed that tweets the start of every new post that I put on the blog.


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